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Dhanya Rajendran, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The News Minute, has been nominated for the Reporters without Borders (RSF) Impact Prize of the Year 2025 from India. The Impact Prize recognises media outlets, journalists, and NGOs whose work has positively influenced journalistic freedom, independence, or pluralism, or has successfully raised awareness about these principles. Dhanya Rajendran was nominated for her full-blown fight for press freedom in India
“Under her leadership, The News Minute has established itself as a benchmark for quality journalism, but she and her team have been repeatedly subjected to lawsuits and are harassed online because of their work,” RSF notes.
RSF also mentioned that Dhanya Rajendran is at the forefront of defending the space for independent media in India as the head of Digipub, an umbrella organisation for digital media. And she has initiated several legal challenges to laws introduced by the government to muzzle the press.
Other journalists and organisations, who were nominated, include Bisan Owda (Palestine), Mauricio Weibel Barahona (Chile), Tal al-Mallouhi (Syria), Radio Free Asia (RFA) and staff of the online media outlet Luật Khoa (Vietnam).
The Press Freedom Awards will be held as part of the RSF Festival marking the NGO’s 40th anniversary at the Gaîté Lyrique cultural centre in Paris on 15 November 2025. Twenty-nine journalists, photojournalists and media outlets from around the world will be honoured across five categories, including the Courage Prize, the Impact Prize, the Independence Prize, the Mohamed Maïga Prize for African Investigative Journalism and the Lucas Dolega-SAIF Photo Prize.
Hailing from Palakkad, Dhanya Rajendran has been a journalist for over 22 years, with more than a decade of reporting experience from all the five southern Indian states—Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. She graduated from the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Chennai. She had previously served as the South India Bureau Chief for Times Now, where she led coverage across the region.
In 2014, she co-founded The News Minute 2014 with veteran journalist Chitra Subramaniam and Vignesh Vellore. Over these years, Dhanya has received several prestigious recognitions, including the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons, the Red Ink Journalist of the Year Award, and the Prof. Maxwell Fernandes Journalism Award.