This story is from November 26, 2016

Nanekar awards bestowed upon Pinjarkar, Mallika

Nanekar awards bestowed upon Pinjarkar, Mallika
Representative image.
NAGPUR: SR Nanekar Memorial Trust on Friday bestowed the best journalist and sportsperson awards upon Vijay Pinjarkar of The Times of India and Mallika Bhandarkar, a table tennis player, respectively, for excellence in their respective field, at a function held at Tilak Patrakar Bhavan.
The awards were given at the hands of VS Sirpurkar, retired judge of the Supreme Court. Prakash Dubey, group editor of Dainik Bhaskar, veteran journalist MY Bodhankar and Shirish Borkar, general secretary of Nagpur Union of Working Journalists, were seated on the dais.

Speaking on ‘Is present day journalism on the right track?’, Sirpurkar said, “Journalists have power in their words. Once they write, they cannot back out as they are committed to their words. Readers always believe in whatever is published and that is how they shape their thoughts.” He lamented that many journalists were not professionally trained due to which grammatical and spelling mistakes were seen in print. In European countries and the USA, the readership of newspapers decreased in the past year. But in India, it increased by 2%. Is it not then the duty of journalists to be extremely responsible, asked Sirpurkar.
Dubey said, “We have forgotten the standards that are needed to be maintained before reporting a case. It is imperative to understand what responsibilities a journalist has to shoulder rather than trying to attract readers towards news reports by exaggerating facts.”
Replying to the felicitation, Bhandarkar thanked the organizers for recognizing her efforts for excellence in table tennis and laurels she brought.
Pinjarkar said, “I am indebted to TOI for giving me space for writing extensively on wildlife and forests. I am fortunate that I got this golden opportunity.”
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