New Delhi: ThePrint’s National Photo Editor Praveen Jain was conferred the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in the ‘Photo Journalism’ category Friday. Vice President C.P. Radhakrishnan presented this year’s awards as chief guest.
Jain won the award for a photo essay on one of six UP villages along the India-Nepal border that still remain cut off from development and the digital India dream, published on 18 April 2024. You can read the report, headlined ‘Stuck in time: No mobile network, river & jungle only route to Indo-Nepal border villages’, here.
Ahead of the 2024 general elections, the veteran photojournalist along with Senior Assistant Editor Apoorva Mandhani visited Bharthapur village in UP’s Bahraich district where the veteran photojournalist captured the difficulties faced by local residents.
The story puts the spotlight on the adversity they face, cut off from any sort of development, deprived of even the most basic resources including proper healthcare and education. Life is tough in Bharthapur, with no mobile network, access only via a tricky boat ride across the crocodile-infested waters of the Girwa, and a dense jungle route to the mainland.
Fed up, the villagers took matters into their own hands and decided to boycott the Lok Sabha elections if they don’t start getting mobile networks. All walls in the villages were painted with slogans such as ‘No tower, No power’, and ‘No network. No vote’.
Jain, whose illustrious career spans more than four decades, said: “The RNG awards are similar to that quote by Amitabh Bachchan from the Gujarat tourism ads: “Agar Kutch nahi dekha toh kuch nahi dekha (If you haven’t seen Kutch, you haven’t seen anything). The same goes with the RNG awards. If you haven’t won this award, you haven’t won anything.”
Speaking about his experience in Bharthapur, he said he had never seen a village living in such terror. Surrounded on three sides by crocodile-infested rivers, set deep inside a jungle, the people lived in constant fear of tigers and elephants. “It was a very scary atmosphere there.”
Jain added that the children he talked to there were living in another world altogether, but they dreamed of wanting to learn about the world on the other side of the river.
Instituted by the Ramnath Goenka Foundation, the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards recognise the best of journalism, showcasing 25 outstanding contributions from print, digital and broadcast platforms from across 18 categories, including investigative reporting, politics and government, feature writing, books, sports and regional language journalism.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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