New Delhi 21st December, 2017 – Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu today awarded 27 journalists at the 12th edition of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards. Like every year, India Today journalists featured prominently among the award winners.
This year, three India Today journalists – Bipasha Mukherjea, Manogya Loiwal and Moumita Sen – were awarded by Naidu for exceptional journalism. Bipasha Mukherjea’s reportage Goal Mizoram won the award in the sports category, Manogya Loiwal’s Young Minds Old Body won the top award in the Uncovering Invisible India category, and Moumita Sen’s Test Kashmir bagged the honour for Reporting from J&K category.
GOAL MIZORAM
7 Mizo boys were going away to play football in the prestigious Bundesliga. Driving through interior Mizoram, India Today’s Bipasha Mukherjea had to catch up with them before they left for Germany. These footballers served as vanguards of a sporting revolution weaving dreams of glories to come. And along the meandering road everyone knew their names, the names of the boys whose eyes were set on their GOAL.
THE CHALLENGE
Goal Mizoram is a story of how sports can build life and help develop a region. Language, terrain and culture all were challenging and therefore exciting. Mizoram is a state highly literate yet fighting poverty, alcoholism, AIDS. It is a land where Bollywood is yet to make its impression but the only thing that connects this remote state with the rest of the country is its die hard passion for football. This sport is the gateway for the youth to build their lives and their families’. The challenge was to tell their story which would tell the story of their state in return and the rise of Mizoram as the new Mecca of football in India.
