The Asia Editor for a British newswire agency has won a prestigious award for his campaigning work in fighting sports corruption.
New Delhi-based editor and author Shantanu Guha Ray has been awarded the International Anti-Corruption Excellence Award for a series of articles that he did on corruption in the game of cricket.
In order to receive the award, Shantanu who is the Asia Editor at Central European News, and his wife Keya, were flown to Tashkent in Uzbekistan where the award was presented by His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of the state of Qatar.
It is the seventh time the award has been handed out, following previous ceremonies in Vienna, Geneva, Kuala Lumpur, Kigali, Tunis, and Doha.
Accepting the award, Shantanu said he had been delighted by the nomination, and it was the icing on the cake to then learn that he had also won the award in recognition of his expose that revealed massive corruption in Indian cricket related to spot fixing of international matches.
Details of his work can be traced in his book, Fixed: Cash and corruption in cricket. In an interview with the organisers, the Doha-based Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Centre, he said: “I have faced many tensions while tracking big crimes but never failed to complete my copy. I always reminded myself, wherever there is flaw, there is law.”
Shantanu has worked as a correspondent and more recently regional editor for CEN for more than a decade, covering news initially from India and more recently from the entire Asian region.
This year the organisers said there had been tough competition, particularly for the award with regards to safeguarding sport from corruption, and Shantanu shared the prize with Waihiga Mwaura, a journalist from Kenya.
Alongside investigations into sports corruption, Shantanu’s other work has uncovered corruption in other fields, such as the mislabeling and export of blood diamonds from the mines of Angola and Botswana to diamond dealers in India. He also uncovered a program of systematic corruption in the allocation of coal extraction.
His work in tracing the life and times of sex workers and cattle smuggling to Bangladesh have been applauded, he won the Crossword Raymond award for best non fiction book, Target, in the business category, the Ramnath Goenka award for sports writing, the Laadli award for investigation into cervical cancer deaths in 2010, the Washington Press Club of America award for investigations into tobacco and asbestos also in 2010, and the Wash award for reportage on water crisis in 2008.
A well-deserved reward for a top journalist, author, sportsman and friend!
well done!!