DD News' award-winning founding anchor Neelum Sharma passes away
Neelum Sharma, an award-winning senior anchor and news presenter of Doordarshan News, passed away on Saturday after working for over 20 years with the news channel. Neelum, one of the founding anchors of DD News, was reportedly suffering from cancer. Doordarshan News took to Twitter to confirm the news and condole the death of the iconic anchor. Here's more.
Neelum was best known for her programs like 'Badi Charcha' and 'Tejasvini' on Doordarshan News. She was also a strong advocate for women empowerment. 'Tejasvini' was one of her most popular programs in which she highlighted the achievements of women from the remotest parts of the country who went on to become role models for others.
Neelum hosted several path-breaking programs which had even won her many accolades, including the Best News Anchor Award, Aadhi Aabadi Award, and KPS Gill Fearless Journalist Award. Notably, she was honored with the prestigious "Nari Shakti Puraskar" - the highest civilian honor in India for recognizing women's achievements/contributions - by President Ram Nath Kovind on the occasion of International Women's Day last year.
Condoling Neelum's death, Doordarshan tweeted, "#DDNews mourns passing away of our dear Colleague Neelum Sharma." "A founding anchor with over 20 years of association with #ddnews, she played a stellar role in many capacities. From 'Badi Charcha' to 'Tejasvini' her path breaking progs won accolades including Nari Shakti Award," the news channel posted on Twitter.
#DDNews mourns passing away of our dear Colleague Neelum Sharma. A founding anchor with over 20 years of association with #ddnews, she played a stellar role in many capacities. From 'Badi Charcha' to 'Tejasvini' her path breaking progs won accolades including Nari Shakti Award pic.twitter.com/dYKv3S4aCe
— Doordarshan News (@DDNewsLive) August 17, 2019
Neelum, who started her career with Doordarshan in 1995, has inspired hundreds of journalists with her work on the channel. She is also credited with playing a key role in building the DD News channel from scratch. Tributes from several quarters started pouring in as soon as the news of the iconic media personality's shocking demise broke out.
While Neelum was widely known for anchoring, scripting, and research in the field of electronic media, she was also an acclaimed documentary filmmaker with over 60 documentary films to her credit. She was also a visiting faculty at several media institutes.
