Amitabha Chowdhury

1961 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts from India. Amitabha Chowdhury’s contribution to the field of investigative journalism started when he became assistant editor of Jugantar, an influential Calcutta daily newspaper in Bengali. Assigned to report on the great movement of refugees in Bengal following the partition of India and Pakistan, he introduced a humanized style of writing in the Bengali press and established his newspaper as a champion of the cause of the refugees.

His then weekly column entitled Nepathya Darshan, or "Scenes Behind the Curtain," gave the angry and dissatisfied Bengali intellectuals and poor men alike their first effective means of voicing legitimate grievances. He painstakingly documented and exposed more than 250 cases of abuse of power in high levels of government, that resulted in the dismissal, demotion or initiation of legal action against some 50 delinquent officials. The column also aroused constructive public debate of social disease by examining in depth the causes and possible solutions.

Amitabha Chowdhury is also the prime mover in founding the Press Foundation of Asia (1991 Magsaysay Awardee) which batted for development journalism, highlighting issues and events on population, science and technology, health, nutrition and education.