Journalism Awards: Ramnath Goenka, Pulitzer and More

The correct answer is B, the Indian Express Group. The awards were instituted in 2006 in memory of Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Indian Express newspapers, and are administered by the group through an independent jury that has usually been chaired by a former judge of the Supreme Court. Option A is wrong because the Times Group is associated with the Times of India and does not run these awards. Option C is wrong because the Hindu Group publishes The Hindu and Frontline but has no award of this name. Option D is wrong because the ABP Group is a Bengali and Hindi media house best known for Anandabazar Patrika and its television channels. Remember the pairing as founder to newspaper: Ramnath Goenka belongs to the Indian Express, and the group's own award therefore carries his name.

The correct answer is C, 2006. The Indian Express Group began the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2006, a little over a decade after the death of its founder, and the award now covers print, broadcast and digital reporting in a long list of categories, with a separate Journalist of the Year honour. Option A is wrong because 1996 is close to the year Ramnath Goenka died but no award was begun then. Option B is wrong because 2001 predates the award. Option D is wrong because by 2011 the awards had already run for several years. Examiners like founding years, so fix 2006 for the Ramnath Goenka Awards next to 1980 for the Chameli Devi Jain Award and 1917 for the first Pulitzer Prizes.

The correct answer is C, Columbia University. The Hungarian-born American publisher Joseph Pulitzer left money in his will to Columbia University in New York, which set up a school of journalism and the prizes that carry his name; the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in 1917 and are announced every year by the university on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board. Option A is wrong because Harvard, though also in the United States, has no role in the prize. Option B is wrong because Yale awards its own honours but not the Pulitzer. Option D is wrong because Princeton is unconnected with it. The trap in this question is that candidates remember New York but attach the prize to the wrong university, so store the pairing of Pulitzer with Columbia firmly.

The correct answer is C, 1917. Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911 and his will provided for the prizes, which Columbia University first gave out in 1917. Option A is wrong because 1901 is the year the Nobel Prizes were first awarded, a date candidates often transfer to the Pulitzer by mistake. Option B is wrong because 1911 is the year of Pulitzer's death, not of the first award. Option D is wrong because 1927 is far too late. A clean way to hold the sequence is Nobel 1901, Pulitzer 1917, Magsaysay 1957, Chameli Devi Jain 1980, Ramnath Goenka 2006. Questions in this area almost always test one of these founding years, and the Nobel and Pulitzer pair is the commonest trap of the set. Note also that the journalism categories are open mainly to work published by United States newspapers, magazines and news websites, which is why Indian winners appear through American organisations rather than through Indian ones.

The correct answer is A, Gobind Behari Lal. A science correspondent who had gone from Punjab to the United States, Gobind Behari Lal shared the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1937 for his coverage of a scientific meeting, and he is remembered as the first Indian-born winner of the prize. Option B is wrong because the photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was part of a Reuters team honoured much later, in 2018, for pictures of the Rohingya crisis. Option C is wrong because Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, which is a literature award and later than 1937. Option D is wrong because Dar Yasin was one of the Associated Press photographers honoured in 2020 for images from Kashmir.

The correct answer is B, P. Sainath. Palagummi Sainath received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2007 for journalism that placed the agrarian crisis, farmer suicides and rural poverty at the centre of national reporting, work also known through his book Everybody Loves a Good Drought. Option A is wrong because Arun Shourie won the Magsaysay Award earlier, in 1982, for investigative journalism in the Indian Express. Option C is wrong because the television journalist Ravish Kumar received the award in 2019. Option D is wrong because B. G. Verghese was honoured in 1975. All four names are genuine Indian winners in the journalism category, which is exactly why the question works: the year, not the name, is what is being tested. The award itself was instituted in 1957 and is administered from Manila, and the citation for Sainath praised his insistence that the rural poor be written about as people rather than as statistics in a table.

The correct answer is B, journalism. The Chameli Devi Jain Award for an Outstanding Woman Journalist was instituted in 1980 by the Media Foundation in New Delhi and is named after Chameli Devi Jain, a freedom fighter who was jailed during the national movement. It is the best known Indian award reserved for a woman in the profession. Option A is wrong because awards for classical music come from bodies such as the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Option C is wrong because social service is recognised by honours such as the Jamnalal Bajaj Awards. Option D is wrong because sports honours are the Arjuna, Khel Ratna and Dronacharya Awards. The examinable pair here is the award with the year 1980 and the giver, the Media Foundation.

The correct answer is B, 16 November. National Press Day marks the day in 1966 on which the Press Council of India began its work as a moral watchdog of the press, and the Council itself organises the observance and presents its National Awards for Excellence in Journalism around it. Option A is wrong because 3 May is World Press Freedom Day, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993 after the Windhoek Declaration of 1991. Option C is wrong because 2 October is Gandhi Jayanti and the International Day of Non-Violence. Option D is wrong because 21 June is International Yoga Day. The pair to remember is National Press Day on 16 November and World Press Freedom Day on 3 May. A second detail worth carrying into the hall is that the Press Council of India functions today under the Press Council Act, 1978, and that the highest of its journalism awards is named after Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the pioneer of the Indian press.

The correct answer is A, 3 May. The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 3 May as World Press Freedom Day in 1993, acting on a recommendation of the UNESCO General Conference that followed the Windhoek Declaration of African journalists in 1991; UNESCO presents the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on this day. Option B is wrong because 8 March is International Women's Day. Option C is wrong because 16 November is India's own National Press Day, tied to the Press Council of India. Option D is wrong because 10 December is Human Rights Day, the day the Nobel Prizes are also presented. Papers frequently place 3 May and 16 November in the same set of options, so keep the international date and the Indian date apart.

The correct answer is B, Guillermo Cano Isaza. UNESCO instituted the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 1997 in memory of the Colombian editor of El Espectador, who was murdered outside his office in 1986 for writing against drug cartels; the prize is presented each year on World Press Freedom Day, 3 May. Option A is wrong because Joseph Pulitzer's name belongs to the prizes administered by Columbia University. Option C is wrong because Ramon Magsaysay was a President of the Philippines and the award in his name is given in Manila. Option D is wrong because Ramnath Goenka founded the Indian Express and his name is on an Indian journalism award. A useful memory hook is that the murdered editor's prize is the one UNESCO gives.

The correct answer is B, UNESCO. The Kalinga Prize for the Popularisation of Science was created in 1951 with a donation from Biju Patnaik, the founder of the Kalinga Foundation Trust of Odisha, and UNESCO awards it to writers, editors and broadcasters who explain science to ordinary readers; the first prize went to the French physicist Louis de Broglie. Option A is wrong because the World Health Organization gives health honours and not a science writing prize. Option C is wrong because the United Nations Environment Programme gives the Champions of the Earth award. Option D is wrong because the International Atomic Energy Agency is a nuclear watchdog with no such prize. The Indian link through Biju Patnaik makes this a favourite question. Note finally that the Kalinga Prize rewards the popularisation of science rather than original research, which separates it from the Nobel Prizes and from India’s own Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for laboratory work.

The correct answer is B, a statutory body set up by an Act of Parliament. The Press Council of India first began working in 1966 and functions today under the Press Council Act, 1978; it is a self-regulatory watchdog whose chairman is chosen by a committee of the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and a member of the Council itself, and by convention the chairman has been a retired judge of the Supreme Court. Option A is wrong because the Council is created by law, not by owners. Option C is wrong because it is not a departmental wing of the Home Ministry. Option D is wrong because Article 324 creates the Election Commission, and the Press Council finds no mention in the Constitution.