New Delhi: NDTV India’s senior executive editor Ravish Kumar has been awarded the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award for “harnessing journalism to give voice to the voiceless”. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Manila on September 9, 2019.
Kumar’s Prime Time programme deals with real-life, under-reported problems of ordinary people.
“In electing Ravish Kumar to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his unfaltering commitment to a professional, ethical journalism of the highest standards; his moral courage in standing up for truth, integrity, and independence; and his principled belief that it is in giving full and respectful voice to the voiceless, in speaking truth bravely yet soberly to power, that journalism fulfills its noblest aims to advance democracy,” reads the statement on the official website.
Ravish Kumar was one among five individuals who were declared winners of the award. The other winners of the award, dubbed ‘Asia’s premier prize and highest honour’, include Myanmar’s KoSwe Win, also a journalist; Thailand’s Angkhana Neelapajit, human rights activist; Philippines’ Raymundo Pujante Cayabyab, musician; and South Korea’s Kim Jong-Ki, an activist working with violence and mental health issues in youth.
The Ramon Magsaysay Award celebrates the memory and leadership example of the third Philippine president after whom the award is named, and is given every year to individuals or organisations in Asia who manifest the same selfless service and transformative influence that ruled the life of the late and beloved Filipino leader. The award established in 1957, is considered as the Asia’s highest honour.
