Mumbai, May 5: Two Indian journalists have been awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for their investigative reporting project that exposed cyber crime in India.
Anand R.K. and Supna Sharma, along with Natalie Obiko Pearson, were announced as winners in the ‘Illustrated Reporting and Commentary’ category on Monday. They received this honor for their report prepared for Bloomberg.
Another Indian journalist, Devjyot Ghoshal, was a finalist in the same category. He uncovered cyber crime and human trafficking in Southeast Asia. This investigation revealed how criminals trap individuals from India and other countries, confining them in camps and orchestrating fraud against people in other nations. He is based in Bangkok.
Reporter Aniruddha Ghoshal, residing in Hanoi, won an award in the ‘International Reporting’ category. He investigated the extensive use of secret surveillance tools by the U.S. Border Patrol. These devices were initially developed in Silicon Valley and later enhanced in China.
The report series also highlighted how China and other countries utilize these tools.
The Pulitzer Prizes, the most prestigious awards in American journalism, are administered by the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
Bloomberg’s illustrated report features the harrowing story of Lucknow neurologist Ruchira Tandon. Cyber criminals impersonated officials, keeping her in a state akin to ‘house arrest’ for six days, during which they defrauded her of 28 million rupees from her bank accounts.
The Pulitzer Prize announcement noted that this report shed light on the growing global issues of surveillance and digital fraud.
Anand is a Mumbai-based illustrator and visual artist with multiple awards to his name, while Supna Sharma is a freelance investigative journalist in India.
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