Ravinder Sharma, Amit Kumar excel at CNNYJA 2005

Televisionpoint.com Team
CNN International has awarded the CNN Young Journalist Awards 2005 to Aaj Tak's Ravinder Sharma in the Television category, while Sahara Samay's Amit Kumar Shrivastava was the runner-up in the same.

The freelancer Anuj Chopra was the winner in the Print/Online category, while Shimaila Matri Dawood of Newsline magazine, Karachi, was declared the runner-up. V H Harishbabu of India Vision (Malayalam) was the winner in the newly introduced Cameraperson category.

Aaj Tak's Sharma won the award for the sting operation 'Tihar Jail Bani Ghoos Mahal', on the corruption in Delhi's Tihar jail. And Harishbabu, won the prize for 'Oru vadakkan ona kazcha', a feature based on the folklore of Malabar tradition in north Kerala. Chopra won the prize for his story, 'No Entry, We are the Meat Nazis'.

Speaking on the occasion, Jill Dougherty, Managing Editor, CNN International Asia Pacific, said, "CNN launched the Young Journalist Award to reward and honour promising young journalists in India and Pakistan. We at CNN are very pleased with the number and the quality of responses that we have received from India and Pakistan over the past three years and hope that we are able to continue our pursuit of acknowledging and honouring journalistic excellence. I am particularly glad that to mark CNN's 25th Anniversary, we introduced the special category, Cameraperson of the Year this year."

Launched in 2003, CNN Young Journalist Award aims to reinforce the importance of a journalist's role and recognise journalistic talent to promote quality journalism.