By Matters India Reporter

New Delhi, Jan. 17, 2020: Father Santosh Digal, a member of Matters India Editorial Board, has won the best reportage on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The annual award is given by the Indian Catholic Press Association (ICPA), a premier organization of Catholic journalists, dailies and periodicals in India founded in 1964.

Digal, a Catholic priest-journalist from the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, also writes for several national and international news organizations.

The association has chosen Father John Deepak Sulya for the Swami Devanand Chakkungal award for his contribution to Hindi literature.

The SC/ST Reportage Award is a joint venture of the ICPA and the Commission for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. The Swami Devanand Chakkungal award is jointly given by the Indore province of the Society of the Divine Word and the ICPA.

The awards will be conferred by former Supreme Court Judge Justice Kurien Joseph during the 25th national convention of Christian journalists, organized by the ICPA on February 29 in New Delhi.

An ICPA press release says Father Digal has been regularity contributing on Dalit and Tribal issues. He has worked as a sub editor at Orissa Post (English daily from Bhubaneswar), English tabloid “Yuva Sambad” (youth dialogue) of prominent Odia daily Sambad (Bhubaneswar), and Kloud 9 (monthly English magazine) for high school and college students published from Bhubaneswar.

Digal’s writings have mainly focused on human rights, freedom of religion, religious persecution and marginalized communities (Dalits and Tribals) across India, the ICPA note says.

Fr Deepak Sulya SVD
The ever-smiling priest has also extensively reported on communal violence, especially the anti-Christian violence of Kandhamal in 2008 and its aftermath. “He has been the voice of people’s rights especially of the poor Tribals who are more susceptible to exploitation and injustice,” it adds.

Father Sulya, based in Indore, has been chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Hindi Literature. The Divine Word Father has through his writings made the Word of God as comprehensible as possible in the current literary Hindi that would be appropriate and understandable not only to Catholics but people of other faiths, the ICPA note says.

He uses literary genre that flows smoothly, using words that are delicately and specifically chosen not to hurt the cultural sentiments of the local population, it adds.