Official ceremony of awarding the winners of the international contest for the second national prize "Oltin Kalam" (’Golden Pen’) in the field of journalism was held in Turkiston palace, Tashkent, on 3 May, UzA reports.

The event was devoted to 3 May – the World Press Freedom Day. It was noted that mass media played great role in gradual development of the process of democratization and renovation, modernization and reforming of the country under the direction of the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.

Special attention is paid to the issues of further liberalization of the activity of press, TV, radio, electronic mass media, which is an important condition of deepening reforms, ensuring their independence and freedom, strengthening material and technical base, training and retraining of journalists and technical workers. Some 1,000 newspapers and magazines are published, as well as many radio and TV channels, agencies and Internet media services are functioning in Uzbekistan at the present time.

The main goal of wide-scale reforms is democratization and renewal of society, modernization of the country, and the necessity of further activation of mass media is growing significantly in this process. In this connection, national prize "Oltin Kalam" was established two years ago on the initiative of the Creative Union of Journalists of Uzbekistan and the International Public Centre for Retraining of Journalists.

The first international contest for this prize was held last year and its winners were announced – talented active national journalists, as well as their foreign colleagues, who covered the live of Uzbekistan objectively and authentically.

The next international contest for "Oltin Kalam" national prize was announced in the beginning of this year. Notably, the contest scale expanded considerably this time – main directions, honourable mention prizes and places, amounts of monetary rewards increased. The number of contestants grew threefold as compared to the previous year. 376 journalists who submitted nearly 5,000 works in total from different regions of Uzbekistan participated in the contest in 2007.

Editorial Board of Kashkadaryo newspaper won the main national prize. Editor-in-chief of this periodical Narzulla Ravshanov received special diploma and monetary reward worth 200 minimum wages which is equal to 2.48 million soums or about US$2,000 (currently, 1 minimum wage in Uzbekistan makes up 12,420 soums).

Prize winners on the main four directions of "Oltin Kalam" contest – TV, radio, press and Internet – have received their monetary rewards as well (1st place – 160, 2nd place – 140 and 3rd place – 120 minimum wages).

Moreover, winners have been determined in such nominations within incentive prizes, as "For contribution in development of journalism", "For active civil position", "For the best analytical material on sociopolitical topic", "For the best articles on military-patriotic topic", "For the best journalistic investigation", "For the best film production", "For the best year debut", "For the best photo reportage", "For the best article of foreign journalist on Uzbekistan", etc. Winners of incentive prizes have received diplomas, statuette and monetary rewards worth 80 minimum wages.