New Delhi, March 23: Delhi-based NGO HIV and Human Development and Resource Network (HDRN) today awarded journalists for their sensitive coverage of human trafficking and HIV related issues at a function in which a media commitment of support to coverage of social sector problems was unveiled.

"People living with HIV/AIDS are treated as if they have a limited life...

We forget that all of us have a limited life," said Kumar Ketkar, Chief Editor of Marathi daily Loksatta while addressing the function.

In his address, V S Chandrasekar, Executive Editor of the Press Trust of India, said the news agency was not driven by commercial considerations and provided as much vigorous coverage as possible of social sector issues in its wire services as well as features service.

The HDRN-instituted media awards are supported by the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Prevention of Trafficking HIV and AIDS in Women and Girls (TAHA) project.

The awardees were given a citation and Rs 25,000 in cash.

The ceremony also saw the unveiling of a statement of commitment to highlight the issues by Indian media which included organisations like PTI, Indian Express, NDTV, The Hindu, Loksatta and Aaj Tak among others.

The awardees included Supratim Banerjee and Shams Tahir Khan (Aaj Tak), Rajat Sharma (India TV), Deepak Tiwari and K Sachidananda Murthy (The Week), Peetu Nair and Peter D'Souza (Gomantak Times), Pramod Suman and Anjani Kumar (Prabhat Khabar), Savad Rahman and A S Suresh Kumar (Madhyamam Malayalam Daily), Akoijam Sunita (Imphal Free Press) and Shekhar Deshmukh and Kumar Ketkar (Loksatta).

The awardees were chosen from as many as 300 entries.

Addressing the function, L D Mandloi, Director General, Doordarshan, said `Kalyani clubs', a DD programme focusing on healthrelated issues and involving audience participation, has been a huge success and over 5,000 such clubs have been started since the inception of the award-winning series in 2002.
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