IANS
Manila, Aug 1: Noted Indian journalist Palagummi Sainath won the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay award on Tuesday for his 'passionately committed' people-centric reportage.
'As the economy surges, matters that call for the urgent attention of the public and government are ignored in favour of film starlets and beauty queens, the stock market, and India's famed IT boom. Sainath has taken a different path. Believing that 'journalism is for people, not for shareholders', he has doggedly covered the lives of those who have been left behind,' reads the citation of what is often described as Asia's Nobel Prize.
Under a media fellowship in the 1990s, Sainath 'painstakingly investigated life in India's 10 poorest districts', the citation points out.
In his bestselling Everybody Loves a Good Drought (1997) and in hundreds of subsequent articles, Sainath 'presented his readers with a world that belied the giddy accounts of India's economic miracle. In this India, the harsh life of the rural poor was, in fact, growing harsher', notes the citation.
It adds: 'In electing Palagummi Sainath to receive the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognises his passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India's consciousness, moving the nation to action.'
The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) - which has been giving the awards every year since 1957 - announced seven award winners from China, India, South Korea, Nepal and the Philippines in 2007. The other winners are:
Jovito R Salonga, from the Philippines, for Government Service. He is being recognised for 'the exemplary integrity and substance of his long public career in service to democracy and good government in the Philippines'.
Kim Sun-tae, from South Korea, for Public Service. He is being honoured for 'his inspiring ministry of hope and practical assistance to his fellow blind and visually impaired citizens in South Korea'.
Mahabir Pun, from Nepal, for Community Leadership. He is being recognised for 'his innovative application of wireless computer technology in Nepal, bringing progress to remote mountain areas by connecting his village to the global village'.
Tang Xiyang, from China, for Peace and International Understanding. He is being honoured for 'his guiding China to meet its mounting environmental crisis by heeding the lessons of its global neighbours and the timeless wisdom of nature itself'.
Chen Guangcheng, from China, for Emergent Leadership. He is being honoured for 'his irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law'.
Chung To, from China, for Emergent Leadership. He is being recognised for 'his proactive and compassionate response to AIDS in China and to the needs of its most vulnerable victims'.
The award presentation ceremony will be held here Aug 31.