Lowe Lintas wins Grand Prix for Best Advertisement at Laadli Media Awards 2018

The South Asia Laadli Media & Advertising Awards for Gender Sensitivity 2017, popularly known as Laadli Media Awards 2018, presented 33 awards in different categories, including three international awards, to media professionals who displayed exemplary sensitivity in reporting on gender issues.

Lowe Lintas won a Grand Prix in the Best Advertisement category for the campaign ‘#EveryWomansRight’, an initiative by Astral Pipes’ on building toilets for rural women’. FCB India won the ‘Best Advertisement - CSR’ for the campaign ‘Sindoor Khela’ — a social media campaign by TOI on gender equality in the traditional festivities. ‘Best Advertisement - Product’ was received by The Womb’s ‘Saregama Carvaan - The Perfect Gift for Your Mother’. 

Award for the category ‘Best Advertisement - Service’ was given to Coverfox.com’s  ‘Cover Karo, Kaam Aayega’, ft. Taapsee Pannu. ‘Best Advertisement - Corporate’ had  gone to CeatTyre’s ‘#ThingsThatHappenAtWork- Gender Bias’. ‘Best Advertisement - Digital’ was received by  Mahindra and NanhiKali’s ‘#LadkiHaathSeNikalJaayegi’ and Samsung Technical School’s CSR Initiative ‘We care for the girl child-#SapneHueBade’.

The awards celebrate people’s and organisations’ contribution in society through gender-sensitive media campaigns, by not so-called mainstream media — be it blogs on mental disability, podcasts on sexual reproductive health for ragpickers or a transgender startup YouTube channel on busting myths on lives of transgender persons.

The awards are spearheaded by Population First. The chief guest at the awards was the veteran Indian journalist Shekhar Gupta who said, “Laadli is doing a wonderful job since the last 16 years, creating a platform to showcase gender sensitive reporting and its contribution is highly rewarding.”

Gupta said, “In 1977, very few women were there in media and journalism but these days it's about eight women to two men.  This is a big change that has come around. They are there because they are good, not as a favour from anyone. #Metoo is an important campaign. In work spaces, sexual harassment is used to leverage power over someone, which is wrong.  We should learn to respect woman as adults. The campaign is a also an opportunity to bring about a power balance in social and professional equations and in society.” 

The Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded to Padma Bhushan Dr Prabha Atre, renowned Indian classical vocalist from Kirana Gharana, for her contribution to music. The Laadli of the Century award was presented to Madam Coomi Wadia, the veteran and famous woman Choir Conductor of India.

The Woman behind the Screen Award was posthumously awarded to Late Kalpana Lajmi for her contribution to Indian Cinema and for her courage to make meaningful women-oriented films.

This year the awards received entries from Mauritius, Nepal and Pakistan. South Asia Laadli Media Awards felicitated (1) Himanshu Devi Marchurchand from Mauritius, who has been consistently covering issues related to gender equality, poverty, politics and the repercussions of latest international developments, (2) Tooba Masood from Pakistan, who has been passionately writing on women-related stories for the past three years, and (3) Durga Karki from Nepal, who has produced a radio show on gender-related issues in Radio Sagarmatha.

The other winners at the awards were:

• The award for the ‘Feature Film’ category was awarded to one of the most appreciated film ‘Lipstick under my Burkha’.
• The ‘Special Edition’ category award was presented to The News Minute for their edition titled ‘Talking Gender’. 
• The ‘Books’ category  award was received by Nalini Jameela and Reshma Bharadwaj for ‘Romantic Encounters of a Sex Worker’ (Non Fiction), Sanam Maher for ‘The Sensational Life and Death of Qandeel Baloch’ (Non Fiction) and Anita Kumar for ‘Cappuccino Confessions’ (Fiction).
• The award for the category ‘Campaign’ was given to Campus Politik for the topic ‘Sexual Harassment Redressal Mechanism in Colleges’.
• The ‘Theatre’ category award was given to ‘Saat Teri Ek vees’ — a set of monologues with the underlying theme of desire.

The jury for the South Asia Laadli Media Awards includes prestigious editors, writers, advertising and media professionals like KV Sridhar, Deepa Gahlot, Sathya Saran, Parmesh Shahani, Dolly Thakore, Meena Menon, Toral Shah, Jeroo Mulla, Pia Benegal, S. V. Sista and Mohammed Khan.

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