Tinka Tinka India Awards to return with a bounty of hope

With Human Rights’ Day around the corner, Tinka Tinka Foundation is all set to return with the 8th edition of Tinka Tinka India Awards. This is the exclusive series of national awards in the country that honours extraordinary contributions by inmates and jail officers towards reforming India’s prisons. So far, more than a hundred jail inmates and forty prison officers and jail staff have been recognised under this initiative since its conception in 2015. These exclusive awards are conceived by prison reformer Dr. Vartika Nanda. 

Flame of inspiration spreads far and wide

Receiving nearly 700 entries by inmates and 60 by jail staffers from all over India for the awards this year, the organisation will announce the names of the awardees(( in a special ceremony in Central Jail Sabarmati, Ahmedabad,)) on 9th December, 2022. These awards will be conferred under 4 different categories, namely, ‘Painting’, ‘Special Mention’, ‘Prison Administration’ as well as the special ‘Bandini’ category exclusively for women inmates. 

Many of this year’s award-winning entries are expected to highlight the creative rigour and the spirit of self-correction amongst the country’s expansive prison community. The huge number of entries this year also signifies the ever-growing passion amongst inmates and administrators to positively change the closed premises encircling their lives. 

Entries were adjudicated by an esteemed jury composed of Dr. A.P. Maheshwari, IPS (retd.) Former DG, BPR&D and Sanjay Chaudhary, IPS (retd.), Former DG, Prisons & Correctional Services, Madhya Pradesh. The awards for select inmates and distinguished jail administrators will be released by Dr. K.L.N. Rao, DG Prisons, Gujarat, this year.

‘Newspapers in Jails’

Every year, Tinka Tinka India Awards imbue many shades of inspiration under relevant themes. This year, the selected theme ‘Newspapers in Jails’ will highlight the unique role played by the print media in bridging the information and communication gaps between the prison community and the outside world. Interestingly, this theme will also encompass the role of newspapers in spreading literacy, awareness and general interest among inmates to overcome their limitations and make extraordinary contributions to prison life, especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The chosen themes for the years 2021, 2020 and 2019 were ‘Telephone in Jails’, ‘COVID-19 and Prisons’ and ‘Radio in Jails’ respectively. All of them aimed to accurately present the intersection of life behind the bars, connective media and the impact on inmates as they channelled their artistic and entrepreneurial side to gradually transcend their shackled circumstances. Following this unique precedent of past years, this year’s theme too reflects the distinct set of issues, aspirations and challenges emerging in the confines of the country’s prisons.

About Tinka Tinka Foundation

Tinka Tinka is the brainchild of prison reformer and media educator Dr. Vartika Nanda who heads the Department of Journalism at Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. She has been honoured with the Stree Shakti Award from the President of India in 2014, the highest civilian honour for women in India. Her work on prisons has twice found a place in the Limca Book of Records and was also recognised by the Supreme Court in 2018. Three books under the Tinka Tinka series – Tinka Tinka Tihar, Dasna and Madhya Pradesh – amalgamate the world of literature with authentic and diverse accounts of inmates from across the country.

Credited for introducing jail radio to Haryana, Agra and Uttarakhand in a long-stretched campaign that started in 2019, the organisation has created an umbrella of creativity under the Tinka Tinka Model of Prison Reforms, with the tagline – “Creating Rainbows in Prisons”. Its unique Tinka Jail Radio Podcast series on YouTube and other digital platforms, which recently touched the 50-episodes mark, is also the only podcast series in the country guided by the vision of prison reformation. Tinka Tinka India Awards and Tinka Tinka Bandini Awards are extensions of many of these mammoth undertakings.