Televisionpoint.com Correspondent | Kolkata
Veteran journalist and author Moti Nandi was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award at a glittering ceremony to mark the grand finale of the maiden edition of the Excellence in Journalism Awards.

Thirteen other scribes won best journalist awards in general, business, sports and lifestyle categories. There were separate awards for reports in English, Hindi and Bengali newspapers. Photo-journalists were also awarded in news, feature and sports categories. Awards were also given to television journalists.

The Excellence in Journalism Awards, the first such in eastern India, was presented by Shyam Steel Industries Ltd. Handing over the Lifetime Achievement Award, Union information & broadcasting minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said the initiative would go a long way in inspiring young journalists to strive harder and uncover the real story for readers.

Former footballer P K Banerjee, chess grandmaster Dibyendu Barua, AIFF vice-president Subrata Dutta, politician Biman Bose, businessman Russi Modi, actors Arjun Chakraborty, Konineeca Banerjee and Jaya Sil, percussionist Bikram Ghosh, singer Swagata Lakshmi Dasgupta, entrepreneur Anjan Chatterjee and filmmaker Gautam Ghose handed out other awards.

From The Times Of India, Subhro Maitra won the best journalist award in general news category while Subhro Niyogi shared the award with Dhiman Sarkar of Hindustan Times in sports category. The other award winners were Biswajit Das and Debasish Dasgupta (general, Bengali) and Archana Sharma (general, Hindi), Sambit Saha (business), Pratim Das Gupta (lifestyle, English), Alok Prasad Chattopadhyay (lifestyle, Bengali), Gautam Bhattacharya (sports, Bengali). Photographers Abhijit Mukherjee (news), Rajib De (feature) and Subhankar Chakraborty (sports) won the accolades. In television, journalist Sougata Mukhopadhyay and cameraman Debasish Nandy won awards.

The award jury comprised authors Amitabha Choudhury and Samaresh Majumdar, industrialist RP Goenka, senior executive Biswanath Dutta and filmmaker Gautam Ghosh. Veteran journalists Tarun Ganguly, Jayanta Sarkar, Ananta Jana, Raj Mithulia and photo journalist Subrata Patronobis made up the awards committee.

The award has been instituted to encourage and promote honest and sincere journalism as part of Shyam Steel's corporate social responsibility initiatives.