Scroll’s Nolina Minj has won second place at the Schizophrenia Research Foundation India’s 2025 Media for Mental Health Award for her reportage on the world of unregulated psychological counselling in India.

The Chennai-based foundation is a nonprofit organisation for mental health.

The awards were distributed during a virtual ceremony on Friday.

The foundation said that the winners’ “powerful stories, sharp field reporting and compassionate narratives continue to push mental health into mainstream discourse”.

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Minj’s article, looks into how the Indian law does not recognise and regulate a range of mental health professionals, was published in January 2025 as part of Scroll’s Common Ground in-depth reporting project.

As a result of psychological counselling being an unregulated area, persons who seek help run the risk of finding themselves in the hands of untrained and unqualified individuals, she reported.

Read: The murky, unregulated world of psychological counselling in India

Independent journalist Sanket Jain won first place in the award for his report about how climate change was leading to a rise in perinatal depression. The article also looked into how Accredited Social Health Activists, or ASHA workers, were acting as an early warning system.

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The story was reported for The Fuller Project and co-published with Scroll.

Schizophrenia Research Foundation India said that Jain won the first place for his “powerful reporting on the urgent need for public health strategies that address both environmental and psychosocial impacts, while highlighting the vital work of community health workers”.

Earlier this year, Jain’s report had also won the Asian Development Bank Institute’s Developing Asia Journalism Award.

Read: As climate change takes toll on maternal mental health, ASHA workers are tackling the challenge