RJ Rafiq wins prestigious India Summit and Audio Award 2023

SRINAGAR: Red FM Srinagar won the prestigious honour at the India Audio Summit and Awards held in Mumbai for the best CSR Initiative for the documentary "The Struggle of Third Kind", led by RJ Rafiq and Burhan Nazir.

The award celebrates the inclusion of audio practices in all types of media entertainment which are divided into 4 categories - Radio, Podcast, Technology & Audio Books. The winners & the nominations are the flag bearers who have not only brought a revolution but also provoked people to follow the path of their dreams.

Radioandmusic.com hosted the India Audio Summit & Awards as an initiative to recognize and reward the best practices in radio, podcasting, and other creative audio projects. The stage saw and honoured individuals and organizations who have contributed to radio, podcasts, audiobooks, and technology.

The Programming Director of J&K and Station Incharge Srinagar, Abrar Zargar, said, “This award is in dedicated to Abdul Rashid, aka Reshma, the documentary's main storyteller, who passed away in November 2022.”

Gender is a cornerstone of a person’s identity. While people are fighting for the equal rights of the two genders, the third gender still has no access to provide access to gender recognition in a manner consistent with the rights to freedom from discrimination, equal protection of the law, privacy, identity, and freedom of expression.

Denying someone the legal recognition of their gender negatively impacts all aspects of their life: their right to health, housing, to access social security, freedom of movement, and residence; and it also fuels discrimination, violence, and exclusion in social settings, including educational and work environments. This leads to the third gender opting for the professions that ‘society’ doesn’t deem fit.

In other parts of India, the third gender predominantly works as sex workers, but in the Valley of Saints, the Paradise on Earth, Kashmir, the cultural ethos doesn’t allow the conscience of the third gender to work on such terms. They still stick to culturally accepted jobs like singing at weddings, working as match-makers, etc. While they also want to live a normal life like the other two genders, they get marginalized and are stuck in these jobs for life.

Red FM J&K took an initiative in the form of a short documentary to show the plight of the transgender community in Kashmir. This documentary provides insight into the difficulties and social abuse that this community has to deal with.

Despite all of these obstacles, many have risen to the occasion and have inspired society in a variety of ways. As a society, we must all work together to support and respect this community and its members. “This subject was very close to our hear, which our Digital Associate and I envisioned together and tried to see it through the camera lens to capture the vision and show it to our people,” said RJ Rafiq who has been actively involved in bringing the energy of the station up.

Burhan Nazir, the eye behind the camera for this documentary said, “with this initiative, I realized Red FM is not just about entertainment but more.”

Alongside this documentary, the other winners included the likes of Anupama Chopra, Vikram Bhatt, Saurabh Dwivedi, Cyrus Broacha, Navya Naveli Nanda, RJ Praveen, Rj Raunac, Amit Dubey, and more for their contribution to the Radio industry in the past one year.

This award show, hosted by The Indian Television Dot Com Group in Andheri West, Mumbai, garnered entries from all over India, including podcasters, social media content creators, and radio stations. The best in their respective categories were nominated, demonstrating the audio medium's prowess in India.