IndiaSpend Stories Win Honours At Laadli Media Awards
Stories on natural farming, abortion rights, women in the workplace and protection of women street vendors win recognition
Mumbai: IndiaSpend won an award and three jury appreciation citations at the 2023 Laadli Media Awards announced on October 21.
The awards are an initiative of Population First, a Mumbai-based social impact organisation, supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). More than 850 entries were received in 13 languages from across the country.
IndiaSpend’s Shreehari Paliath won the award in English for the southern region under the ‘Web: News Report’ category for his story on how women farmers in Andhra Pradesh were helping transition to natural farming.
As part of a special series on natural farming, Paliath’s story looked at the implementation of the Andhra Pradesh Community-Managed Natural Farming project, using women’s self-help groups as the medium to educate women on natural farming, and solve any problems they face in the transition.
The story was accompanied by a video report explaining how the programme convinced women farmers to move to natural, chemical-free farming.
Shreya Raman and Mansi Vijay received jury appreciation citations in English for the northern region. Shreya Raman reported on safety concerns restricting women’s mobility and impacting their careers. Women choose lower paying jobs, have restrictions on the kinds of careers they can choose and jobs they can take up, because of perceptions of safety, we reported.
Mansi Vijay’s story showed how the discourse around reproductive healthcare in India fails to account for a sizable population of queer Indians who may not identify as women, but for whom safe abortions and other sexual and reproductive healthcare access is critical. Later, the Supreme Court included in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, “persons other than cis-gender women who may require access to safe medical termination”.
Sanskrita Bharadwaj’s story, which received jury appreciation in English for the eastern region, showed the challenges faced by women vendors in Nagaland despite a law to protect livelihood rights and social security of street vendors. Women street vendors carry out their businesses under the fear of being evicted, and are also forced to set up their vending spaces in unhygienic locations, often without access to toilets, making them vulnerable to diseases, we reported.
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