HEADLINES TODAY’S BIG NIGHT
New Delhi – Headlines Today has bagged four awards at the eNBA awards held in Delhi on Friday. Instituted in 2008 by popular media website exchange4media, the eNBA awards reward the best talent in Indian news television.
With a galaxy of media stars in attendance, Headlines Today Managing Editor Rahul Kanwal collected one of the most prestigious honours of the evening, — The Best Anchor of the year award.
Rahul won the award for anchoring Centre Stage, which airs on Headlines Today every week night at 9 PM. The show has made an impact with its cutting edge investigations, ground reports and interviews with key news makers. Rahul also hosts the renowned interview show Seedhi Baat on Aaj Tak.
Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group Aroon Purie was among the first to congratulate Headlines Today for its four wins. “I am absolutely delighted that Headlines today has been recognised. This is a recognition of the kind of journalism that Headlines Today is doing. I am glad that Headlines Today is doing old-school journalism, exclusive stories, going on to the ground and doing investigative reports.”
The eNBA awards are among the most coveted in the industry as they have one of the most rigorous selection processes. The jury this time was headed by Star India CEO Uday Shankar and 400 entries from English, Hindi and regional channels vied for honours. Among other jury members, were Filmmaker Shyam Benegal, Columnist Vir Sanghvi and spin legend Bishan Singh Bedi.
One of the big winners of the evening was Headlines Today’s soul scarring documentary ‘Inside the Killing Fields of Lanka’ . It won awards in two categories. Best Current Affairs Programme and Best News Coverage – International.
Special correspondent Priyamvatha along with camera person Ashok Bhanot, were the first international journalists to travel to “The Vanni”, the former stronghold of the Tamil Tiger rebels in North Sri Lanka.
The TV crew traveled undercover sifting through the claims and counterclaims of horrific war crimes allegedly committed by Lankan forces in their effort to exterminate the LTTE. It was the first time that a news channel independently went into Sri Lanka and reported the reality of the post-war Tamil condition. It captured the reality of execution style killings, aerial bombardment of hospitals and designated “safe zones”, sexual assaults on civilians and female combatants.
Headlines Today Special Correspondent Preeti Choudhry emerged the winner in one of the most hotly contested categories of the evening. Her Young Professional of the Year – Editorial award recognized Preeti’s reporting par excellence through the year which brought out some groundbreaking work like ‘Born to Die’ and ‘India’s Abandoned Child’.
In ‘Born to Die’ Preeti traveled to Rajasthan to uncover the horrors of a silent genocide. She exposed how a government scheme ‘Janani Suraksha Yojana’ was being morbidly misused. The UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) division of the UN ordered an independent probe. Preeti’s story has been added as bonafide research material in the UNFPA gender archives.
Preeti’s other work ‘India’s Abandoned Child’ documented the descent of the state of Manipur into virtual chaos after being in the grip of a 100 day economic blockade.
“Headlines Today has been working very hard on breaking away from the clutter, staying away from interminable debates, where all you see is participants scream at each other. Our team has been focusing on hard hitting investigations, cutting edge ground reports and big ticket interviews with key news makers. The four awards at the ENBA are a result of this effort. Over the next year we hope to do more top rate journalism and bag even more awards at ENBA 2013, “ said the channel’s Managing Editor Rahul Kanwal reacting to the wins notched up by his channel.
There was one more reason to celebrate for TV Today Network as Aajtak’s cameraman Rouf Ahmed Roshangar also won the best videographer award.
