SOUTH ASIA
Hindustan Times
Photo: Hindustan Times
Photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo on Tuesday won the Pulitzer Prize becoming the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to get the prestigious prize in journalism.
Mattoo, 28, part of the Reuters team along with three male Indian journalists, Adnan Abidi, Amit Dave and late Danish Siddiqui, who was killed during the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, were awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in the feature photography category for their coverage of the Covid pandemic in India.
The Pulitzer website states that they were awarded for “images of Covid’s toll in India that balanced intimacy and devastation, while offering viewers a heightened sense of place”.
Mattoo’s picture showed a healthcare worker administering a dose of CoviShield, a coronavirus disease vaccine, to a shepherd during a vaccination drive in Lidderwat, Anantnag district, on 10 June 2021. Despite repeated attempts, Mattoo could not be contacted.
“Ranging from ground-breaking news to in-depth storytelling, her work concentrates on depicting the tension between the seeming ordinariness of life and the stark symbols of a menacing militarised milieu of Kashmir,” said the Pulitzer website about Mattoo.
