Five IndiaSpend Stories Recognised At Laadli Awards

This marks IndiaSpend’s fifth consecutive year of recognition at the Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity.

Two stories by Shreehari Paliath won awards this year, the first of which was an August 2024 examination on the need for legislating women’s work. The story focused on women gig workers in Karnataka and how a new bill, then under consideration in the state, would ensure better labour rights for all workers who work as contractors or individual partners for platforms.

Another story by Paliath, on the lack of safety measures and social security for untrained women workers in India’s automobile component manufacturing industry, was named both a regional and national winner. The story highlights the inadequacy of occupational safety and health systems for women workers and showed how injuries on the assembly line upended their lives.

IndiaSpend’s Nileena Suresh also won an award for her story on Garima Grehs, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment-run homes for transgender persons, and how delayed funding hampers their functioning. In addition to providing a space for transgender persons, the shelters were intended to provide skilling and medical care.

Two other stories were recognised with jury appreciation. Mansi Vijay’s IndiaSpend story on filariasis-afflicted women in Uttar Pradesh and their struggle with the stigma and disability brought on by the disease was recognised.

Maitreyee Boruah’s IndiaSpend story on tea garden workers in northern Assam won a jury appreciation citation. Reporting from the tea-growing districts of the state that singlehandedly produces half of India's tea export, Boruah writes about the conditions in which the female children are raised without access to schools, which keeps them trapped in a cycle of poverty, leaving them vulnerable to violence.

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