Dhanya Rajendran, co-founder and the Editor-in-Chief of The News Minute, has been announced as the recipient of the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons 2022. Naming Dhanya as this year’s recipient, a three-member jury comprising columnist Nidhi Razdan, National Rural Affairs and Agriculture Editor at The Indian Express Harish Damodaran, and PTI Bhasha Editor Nirmal Pathak, said that her work showed a blend of meticulous reportage and data reflecting not only individual merit, but the pursuit of committed journalism.
Instituted in 1982, the prestigious annual award is administered by the Media Foundation, and recognises women mediapersons in India who have made an impact with their reporting on themes such as social development, politics, equity, gender justice, health, war and conflict, consumer values, and democratic rights. "Rajendran's reportage is an outstanding example of how good journalism can impact democracy," Harish Khare, chair of the Media Foundation, said in a statement.
This year, the Media Foundation received over 70 entries from all over India, according to the statement. The award will be presented on March 21 at the India International Centre in Delhi. Among past recipients of the Chameli Devi Jain Award are Chitra Subramaniam, co-founder of The News Minute, and many other distinguished women journalists such as Sevanti Ninan, Kalpana Sharma, Sucheta Dalal, Teesta Setalvad, Pamela Philipose, Barkha Dutt, Sunita Narain, Shahina KK, Supriya Sharma, Raksha Kumar, Neha Dixit, and Rohini Mohan.
Dhanya has worked as a journalist for over 20 years, in print, television and digital news organisations, covering important and ignored news from south India throughout her career. Her focus on women’s rights, child sexual abuse, politics and elections, climate disasters, and human rights issues in general has helped get attention for several important stories at a national level.
Dhanya co-founded The News Minute in 2014, to ensure that south India is covered from the south, by south Indian journalists. Since then, she has put the spotlight on issues affecting the southern states that national media has often ignored — whether it’s floods, or eroding federalism.
In November 2022, Dhanya led The News Minute’s investigation of electoral data fraud in Karnataka, a state that’s going to the polls in April-May 2023. The investigation resulted in the Election Commission ordering a review of voter lists in three constituencies in Bengaluru. It also led to the arrest of the director of Chilume, Krishnappa Ravikumar, and the local government ordering that no private organisation can collect voter data.
Dhanya has also been leading the coverage around the sexual assault of actor Bhavana in February 2017, allegedly at the behest of her Malayalam cinema industry colleague Dileep. As Editor-in-Chief of The News Minute, Dhanya has directed her team to follow the case — and sexual abuse in general — closely, leading from the front on how a news organisation should cover such a sensitive subject, shattering archaic ideas of what ‘objectivity’ means when reporting sexual violence in a patriarchal society.