With the growing use of standards-based production, winners can be hard to pick: Perhaps for that reason, judges in this year’s Asian‘best in print’ competition settled for no fewer than four top prizewinners (writes Peter Coleman).

They were HMV’s ‘Hindi’, Sin Chew Media’s ‘Guang Ming Daily’, ‘Alyaum’ newspaper and ‘Nanyang Siang Pau’.

The prizes were handed out in Bangkok tonight as part of the Asia Media Awards, and at the end of the second day of the Publish Asia conference.

Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was a guest for the early proceedings, welcoming delegates and stressing the the need for accurate and balanced journalism. The gala dinner was attended by more than 500 publishing executives from 53 countries in the city for the WAN-Ifra conference and included a variety of cultural entertainments under the 'Believe in Thailand' toruism slogan.

Earlier, welcoming guests to the conference – which had to be switched to Kuala Lumpur in 2010 after political unrest saw the intended venue reduced to ashes – 'Bangkok Post' editor-in-chief Pichai Chuensukawadi had expressed his own belief with the comment, "I have waited three years for this day".

Print winners were:

Best in print, below 150,000 circulation: gold – Hindustan Media Venture for Hindi Hindustan; silver – Sin Chew Media Corporation for Guang Ming Daily, and Alyaum Media House for Alyaum Newspaper; bronze – Nanyang Press Holdings for Nanyang Siang Pau.

Over 150,000 circulation: gold – Apple Daily Hong Kong for Apple Daily, DB Corp for Dainik Bhaskar, HT Media for Hindustan Times, and Bennett, CVoleman & Co for The Times of India; silver – Bennett Coleman for Bangalore Mirror; bronze – Apple Daily Publication Development for Apple Daily (Taiwan), and ABP for The Telegraph.

Other gold winners were:

Best in design, overall – South China Morning Post.

Best in design, magazine overall – SPH Magazines for MGzine.

Newspaper front page – Grafika Wangi Kalimantan for Banjarmasin Post.

Magazine cover – Muscat Press and Publishing House for Thursday Magazine (Times of Oman).

Infographics – Muscat Press and Publishing for Al Shabiba.

Magazine infographics – Singapore Press Holdings for The Straits Times.

Best in editorial, newspaper breaking news article – Financial Times.

Newspaper feature article – Financial Times.

Photojournalism – Nation Multimedia (Watcharachai Klaipong).

Feature photography – Malaya Manorama for The Week (Bhanu Prakash Chiandra).

Sports photography – Singapore Press Holdings (Mugilan Rajasegeran).

Pictured: Part of the evening's cultural entertainment