Khabar Lahariya co-founder Kavita Devi is among 15 journalists and media outlets that have been shortlisted for the 30th annual Press Freedom Prize, which Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, awards in three categories – journalistic courage, impact and independence. 

The award ceremony will be held in Paris on December 12. It will be opened by Nobel peace laureate and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, hosted by French TV presenter Daphné Bürki, and will include performances by singer Jane Birkin, who has been campaigning for journalists in Myanmar.

RSF secretary general Christophe Deloire said, “For 30 years, the RSF prize has honoured the work of those who embody the ideals of journalism. In the digital age, the challenges facing journalism have evolved, but courage, independence and the pursuit of impact remain cardinal virtues. Those who embody them deserve to be honoured and supported.”

In a statement, RSF said that three of its former laureates will present the awards, including Can Dündar, a Turkish journalist and specialist in Turkey’s media; Lina Attalah, cofounder and editor of the independent Egyptian newspaper Mada Masr; and Matthew Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist and son of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist who was killed in 2017 by a bomb placed in her car.

On Kavita Devi’s nomination, the RSF said, “The co-founder and director of Khabar Lahariya, a news website operated solely by women journalists from rural areas, she has become a symbol and voice for the forgotten fringes of Indian society, for rural populations that don’t speak English or even Hindi. As she was born to a family from the Dalit community and was married off at the age of 12, her life should have followed the traditional path of home, children and livestock. But she managed to study and, with other students, founded Khabar Lahariya in 2002, rising to the challenge of imposing women journalists in the traditionally male-dominated media sector and turning the spotlight on the social, ethnic and religious discrimination suffered by India’s marginalised rural populations. She has thereby helped Indian society advance towards more representativity and citizen autonomy, and pluralist journalism independent of the traditional power centres.”

Afghan TV channel TOLOnews has been nominated in the independence category. “By continuing to operate, it emphasises the fact that unbiased reporting can and must be maintained in any circumstances. It is for this reason that it is nominated for its independence in Afghanistan.”

Indian journalist and Washington Post columnist Rana Ayyub is on this year’s jury. Other jury members are Raphaëlle Bacqué, a leading French reporter for Le Monde; Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer and president of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression; Zaina Erhaim, a Syrian journalist and communication consultant; Erick Kabendera, a Tanzanian investigative reporter; Hamid Mir, a Pakistani news editor, columnist and writer; Frederik Obermaier, a German investigative journalist with Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper; and Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and founding editor-in-chief of Dozhd, Russia’s only independent TV news channel. The jury is chaired by RSF president Pierre Haski, a French reporter and columnist.

Chinese journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin, a former Xinquaibao and Southern Metropolis Weekly investigative reporter, has been nominated in the courage category for her work “to promote women’s rights, and to document and expose sexual harassment against women and girls, especially in the media environment”.