A report that was part of Scroll’s Eco India show won the Ramnath Goenka Award in the Environment, Science And Technology Reporting (Broadcast) category for 2019 on Wednesday.

The team that produced the report is headed by Sannuta Raghu and its members are Nooshin Mowla, Sujit Lad, Omkar Phatak, Swati Ali, Dewang Trivedi and Shibika Suresh. The award was presented in New Delhi on Wednesday by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud.

Eco India is a video series produced in partnership with DW, Germany’s international broadcaster, that aims to inspire viewers to build a cleaner, greener and better tomorrow. The report that won the award focussed on the efforts of women farmers in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region to take ownership of land and to tackle persistent droughts. The farmers were trained by non-profit organisation Swayam Shikshan Prayog in making informed decisions about crop patterns, food consumption patterns and the sale of their produce.

In his speech, Justice Chandrachud referred to a Scroll article from April 2021 about how Covid-19 hospitals in Ahmedabad were not admitting patients arriving in private vehicles.

The chief justice said that during the coronavirus pandemic, the media played an important role in highlighting administrative loopholes and excesses. “Various High Courts and the Supreme Court of India relied on news reports in taking suo motu cognisance of instances of violations of people’s rights during the pandemic,” he said.