The Hindu had a problem when it wanted to check why some electors had been deleted from voters’ lists: There were more than six million of them.

In a report last September (top), the paper’s Srinivasan Ramani said several areas showed “abnormal deletions” in categories such as gender and for reasons such as deaths.

Analysis of an Election Commission of India list of more than 65 lakh (6.5 million) deleted electors in Bihar revealed “multiple anomalies”, he said.

The English-language daily harnessed artificial intelligence in its investigation, a process which has led to it winning a top industry prize, a gold award for the best AI-driven news product, format or strategy in WAN-Ifra’s South Asia Digital Media Awards.

Other winners in the category were HT Media Labs for its archives digitisation (silver), and The Printers Mysore for Varta Setu – News Bridge (bronze).

The Hindustan Times publisher was another publisher to benefit from AI in the competition, its HT Media Digital Streams Fintech AI Suite winning gold in the category for most innovative digital product. One jury member described it as “a truly groundbreaking digital product that redefines data monetisation for news publishers.

“By leveraging content consumption patterns and NLP to build ‘alternative credit profiles’ for credit-invisible users, HT Media has successfully bridged the gap between digital journalism and fintech”.

The awards – announced this week – highlight excellence in digital innovation, creativity and audience engagement, showcasing the industry’s push to advance storytelling and tech-driven news experiences.

AI was one of multiple categories in which participating newsrooms competed, as well as audience engagement, data visualisation, newsletters, video, audio, digital products and revenue strategies. All gold winners will advance to WAN-Ifra’s World Digital Media Awards.

The South Asia awards Ceremony are to be presented on June 25, during the Digital Media India 2026 conference, with top global finalists in each of the 12 categories to be announced at the World News Media Congress in Marseille that month.