The 26th annual conference, WAN-IFRA India 2018 , is being held on September 26 and 27 and is co-sponsored by The Indian Newspaper Society. The much-awaited third edition of the ‘South Asian Digital Media Awards’ was presented at the event and over 30 media organisations were awarded under 10 different categories.

"This platform is a novel way to recognise digital media initiatives by publishers from South Asia. It is heartening that participants to the 3rd South Asia Digital Media Awards of WAN-IFRA has increased by 50% to 125 this year and 30 winners have been selected." said DD Purkayastha, Managing Director & CEO of ABP Pte Ltd

The awards, a joint initiative by WAN-IFRA and Google, recognise best practice innovation in digital publishing worldwide. The awards are presented in South Asia, Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. The Gold award winners will subsequently compete for the World Digital Media Awards that will be announced in Glasgow in June during the 71st World News Media Congress 2019.

This year, The Scroll won the coveted Gold award in ‘Best in News Website’ category. The Quint bagged the gold for ‘Talking Stalking’ under the ‘Best Innovation to Engage Youth Audiences’ category. The ‘Best Digital Start-Up’ saw two Silver award winners - Sakal Media Private Limited for the Agrowon App and The Hindu for Briefcase.

“The South Asian Digital Media Awards are a huge source of encouragement to the young team at The Quint, pushing us towards more meaningful journalism and better innovation in storytelling." said Ritu Kapur, Founder and CEO of The Quint

DIGITAL MEDIA AWARD WINNERS 2018

This year's winners are:

Best Branded Content Project
Gold: YoursWisely by Indian Express for Medtronic - World Hearing Day
Silver: Quintillion Media Pvt. Ltd for The Quint and Madhya Pradesh Tourism
Bronze: Jang Media Group for The News HBL PSL

Best Data Visualisation
Gold: NDTV Convergence for NDTV Elections
Silver: Dhaka Tribune for The hungry children of Mother Ganges
Bronze: BBC News Indian Languages for BBC India Visual Journalism team

Best Digital Marketing Campaign
Gold: ABP Pvt Ltd for AnandaUtsav 2017 Digital Campaign
Silver: The Daily Star for "Praner Vasha"- Mother Language Day Special
Bronze: Amarujala.com for Amar Ujala Samwad

Best Digital News Start-up
Gold: madrascourier.com (Madras Courier)
Silver: Sakal Media Private Limited (Agrowon App) and 
Silver: The Hindu (Briefcase)
Bronze: Sakal Media Private Limited (Sarkarnama)

Best in Lifestyle, Sports, Entertainment Website or Mobile Services
Gold: Arré for Arré India
Silver: NDTV Convergence for Swirlster
Bronze: The Hindu Group for SportstarLive

Best in Social Media Engagement
Gold: ABP Pvt Ltd for Ebela.in 2017 Festive Song
Silver: Quintillion Media Pvt. Ltd for My Report
Bronze: BloombergQuint and Quintype for Integrating WhatsApp Communication for Business
Bronze: Mathrubhumi Printing & Publishing Co Ltd for Mathrubhumi women's day special - addressing gender bias on social media

Best Innovation to Engage Youth Audiences
Gold: Quintillion Media Pvt. Ltd for Talking Stalking
Silver: Jang Media Group for Jang VR
Bronze: The Indian Express Group for inuth.com

Best News Website or Mobile Service
Gold: Scroll.in (Scroll.in)
Silver: BBC News Indian Languages (BBC Hindi)
Bronze: Malayala Manorama Company Ltd (Malayala Manorama News App)

Best Reader Revenue Initiative
Gold: Swarajya and Quintype for Preserving Indic Heritage
Silver: Business Standard Private Limited for Business Standard Premium - Digital Subscriptions
Bronze: Dainik Bhaskar Digital for Autobot

Best Use of Online Video (including VR)
Gold: Scroll.in for Your Morning Fix
Silver: BBC News Indian Languages for Crossing the Sky
Bronze: Quintillion Media Pvt. Ltd for Rape is Consensual: Inside Haryana’s Rape Culture

ABOUT WAN-IFRA INDIA 2018  More information on the awards can be found at wan-ifra.org/sdma . Complete details of the programme are available at www.wan-ifra.org/india2018 The conference can be followed on Facebook at www.facebook.com/wanifraindiaconference and on Twitter with the hashtag #wii2018. For a calendar of upcoming WAN-IFRA events, please visit events.wan-ifra.org

ABOUT WAN-IFRA  WAN-IFRA is the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. Its mission is to protect the rights of journalists across the world to operate free media, and provide its members with professional services to help their business prosper in a digital world and perform their crucial role in open societies. With formal representative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe, it derives its authority from its global network of leading news publishing companies and technology entrepreneurs, and its legitimacy from its 80 national association members representing 18,000 publications in 120 countries. www.wan-ifra.org