Ugra bags best Indian Sports Writer of the Year '06 (Magazine)

Mumbai, Aug 5 (UNI) Sharda Ugra of India Today is the only nominee for the Indian Sports Writer of the Year in the Magazine category, while in the newspaper section it will be a two-way fight between Kadambari Murali (New Delhi) and Dhiman Sarkar (Kolkata), both of Hindustan Times, for the Indian Sports Writer of the Year 2006 in The Sports Journalists' Federation of India's TATA Indian Sports Journalism Awards -- 2006.

The awards which are being held in association with Standard Chartered Bank, Indian Oil and Seagrams will be held August 10 at the Experimental Theatre, National Centre for The Performing Arts, Mumbai.

The SJFI had appointed a distinguished panel of judges in different categories. A record number of entries was received for the English category from all over India and a record number of 300 images for the photography awards.

The English Panel, comprising. V K Karthika (Executive Editor, Penguin Books India), Mukul Kesavan (Teacher at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi), Joy Bhattacharya (Sr. Vice-President, Programming, National Geographic and The History Channel) have announced the short-list after evaluating the submissions over a period of three weeks.

The assessment of the photography awards was conducted at the Press Club, Mumbai, in Saturday by an eminent panel consisting of Mehlli Gobhai, educated at Royal College of Art, London, Mahendra Sinh, a well-known Bombay-based photographer and the New York Times Magazine and Ranjit Hoskote, an art critic, poet and independent curator. The following are the shortlists English (Newspapers) News: Siddharth Saxena (The Times of India, New Delhi), Dhiman Sarkar (Hindustan Times, Kolkata), Kadambari Murali (Hindustan New Delhi) Feature: Kadambari Murali (Hindustan Times, New Delhi), Shivani Naik (The Indian Express, Mumbai), G.S.Vivek (Indian Express, New Delhi) Offbeat: Rahul Fernandes (The Times of India, Mumbai), Shailendra Awasthi (The Indian Express, Mumbai), Clayton Murzello (Mid-Day, Mumbai), Pradeep Vijayakar (The Times of India, Mumbai), Avinash Iyer (The Times of India, Mumbai) Interview (Q&A): Dhiman Sarkar (Hindustan Times, Kolkata), Clayton Murzello (Mid-Day, Mumbai), Bobilli Vijay (Times of India, Mumbai) Indian Sportswriter of the year 2006 (English-Newspapers) Kadambari Murali (Hindustan Times, New Delhi), Dhiman Sarkar (Hindustan Times, Kolkata) English (Magazines) Feature: Sidharth Vaidyanathan (Cricinfo), Rahul Bhattacharya (Cricinfo), Sharda Ugra (India Today) Interview (Q&A): Anand Vasu (Cricinfo), Sharda Ugra (India Today), Neeru Bhatia (The Week) Indian Sportswriter of the Year 2006 (MAGAZINES) Sharda Ugra SPECIALIST Cricket: Sharda Ugra (India Today), Rahul Bhattacharya (Cricinfo), Sidhartha Vaidyanathan (Cricinfo) Tennis: Dhiman Sarkar (Hindustan Times, Kolkata), Akshay Sawai (Hindustan Times, Mumbai), Nirmal Shekar (The Hindu, Chennai) Football: Arup Chatterjee (The Times of India, Kolkata) Dhiman Sarkar (Hindustan Times, Kolkata), Akshay Sawai (Hindustan Times, Mumbai) Any other Olympic Sport: Harpreet Kaur Lamba (The Asian Age), New Delhi) Errol D'Cruz (The Times of India, Pune), Vivek Mukherjee (The Times of India, Chandigarh) Best of the web: Anand Vasu (Cricinfo,) Deepti Patwardhan (Rediff.com), Sidharth Vaidyanathan (Cricinfo) Best of News Agencies: C. Rajshekhar Rao (AFP, New Delhi) Qaiser Muhammad Ali (IANS), Kuldip Pal (AFP, New Delhi) Photography Portrait: Satish Bhate (Daily News&Analysis, Mumbai), Ramesh Nair (Daily News&Analysis, Mumbai), Ajay Aggarwal (Hindustan Times, New Delhi) Best action on the field: Prashant Nakhwe (The Times of India, Mumbai), Manoj Patil (Hindustan Times, Mumbai), Ramesh Nair (Daily News&Analysis, Mumbai) Best off the field: Vipin Pawar (Daily News&Analysis, Mumbai), Natasha Hemrajani (Hindustan Times, Mumbai), Ritesh Uttamchandani (Hindustan Times, Mumbai) Indian Sports Photographer of the year 2006: Rajanish Kakade (Hindustan Times, Mumbai) Ramesh Nair (Daily News&Analysis, Mumbai), Ritesh Uttamchandani (Hindustan Times, Mumbai) UNI GS KU AY RN1932