Shariful Rukon, Chief Reporter of Ekushey Patrika, has been honoured with the “Plan International Media Award-2025” for his reporting on women and children’s rights. He received the award in the regional newspaper category.
The awards were presented to the winners at a ceremony held at the Bishwo Shahitto Kendro in the capital’s Banglamotor on Monday.
The event was jointly organised by Plan International Bangladesh and JAAGO Foundation Trust, with support from the Embassy of the Netherlands in Dhaka.
This is not the first time Shariful Rukon has been recognised for his work; he has received multiple national and international accolades. He was awarded a fellowship by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in 2021 and won their “Investigative Journalism Award” in both 2023 and 2024.
Additionally, he is a recipient of the Bangladesh Jeweller’s Association (BAJUS) Media Award (2023) and has won the BRAC Migration Media Award for three consecutive years in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
In 2023, one of his investigative series was selected as one of the best investigative reports from Bangladesh by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).
As the chief reporter for Ekushey Patrika, Rukon regularly reports on various issues, including the health sector, corruption, and human rights violations.
For this year’s Plan International Media Awards, reports published and broadcast between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, were considered. Organisers stated that 107 participants submitted 214 pieces of content, from which a total of 15 journalists were selected as winners across five categories.
The ceremony was addressed by prominent figures including Rasheda K Choudhury, a former adviser to the caretaker government; Kamal Ahmed, head of the Media Reform Commission; Halida Hanum Akhter, a member of the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission; Kabita Bose, Country Director of Plan International Bangladesh; and Parvin Sultana Rabby, chair of the jury board and Director (Training Engineering) of the National Institute of Mass Communication (NIMCO), among other media personalities and development workers.