RedInk award for T N Ninan

The award has been given away by Governor of Maharashtra C Vidyasagar Rao

The Mumbai Press Club bestowed the RedInk Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism on T N Ninan, chairman of Business Standard.

The award, a part of the RedInk Awards for Excellence in Journalism, 2016, was given away by the Governor of Maharashtra C Vidyasagar Rao, who was the chief guest at the function, on Tuesday in Mumbai.

Receiving the award, Ninan emphasised on the viability of the media business and said, "The minute one wants to charge on the website, your traffic goes to free media. If you raise the cover price of a newspaper - we are the cheapest in the world - you are seen to have a fundamental disadvantage in the market." For the journalist, his words of advice were: "We (the media) need to raise the profile of what we do, raise the credibility of what we do so that we are proud of what we do."

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognises his extensive contribution to business journalism through good editorial leadership he provided over the years to a host of publications. "In particular, Mr Ninan, in the face of challenging business conditions, managed to revive and stabilise the Business Standard Group as an institution with high editorial standards," the Mumbai Press Club said.

Piyush Goyal, Union minister for power, coal, new and renewable energy was the guest of honour at the awards function. Goyal said constructive journalism had helped his ministry to a great extent. For example, the power ministry discovered that a number of villages were uninhabited only from a newspaper report. When government officials investigated, it found that there were at least 400 villages that had been abandoned.

He also lamented the absence of humour in public life which had existed in the past. "The humour of the olden days is gone. "We had great fun seeing political cartoons by R K Laxman and Mario Miranda in newspapers. We need to reinstate the humour that existed between journalists and politicians," said Goyal.

The RedInk 'Journalist of the Year' Award was given to TV anchor and NDTV India's Senior Executive Editor Ravish Kumar for his "consistent and down to earth" reporting on politics and issues that "concern the common man".

Besides these two awards, the Mumbai Press Club also gave awards for excellence in journalism in 10 other categories in TV, print and digital formats.

The categories include politics, crime, health and wellness, business, environment, human rights, photography, science and innovation, entertainment and lifestyle, and sports.

Over a duration of a quarter century, Ninan was editor of Business Standard, The Economic Times and Businessworld. From January 2010, Ninan has been the chairman of Business Standard. He has been president of the Editors Guild of India and chairman of the Media Committee of the Confederation of Indian Industry. He has served as a trustee of Aspen Institute India and is also the chairman of the board of trustees of The Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation.

The jury to select the RedInk awards included Justice B N Srikrishna for human rights, Shobha De for entertainment and lifestyle, State Bank of India Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya for business, Harsha Bhogle for sports and Sudheendra Kulkarni for politics.

The past winners of the RedInk Lifetime Achievement include Vinod Mehta, Kuldip Nayar, N Ram, Mrinal Pande and Prannoy Roy.