Monica Jha

Monica Jha is an independent journalist based in India. She reports on marginalization, organized crime, and ecology. She specializes in investigative reporting and longform storytelling.

Her recent investigations include illegal shark fin trade from India to East Asia, and the crimes of the sand mining mafia in the Indian state of Bihar.

Her works have won the Stop Slavery Media Award (2020); Ramnath Goenka Award (2024); SOPA Award (2024); Society of Environmental Journalists’ Outstanding Investigative Reporting Award (2023); and the Fetisov Journalism Award (2021). She was a finalist for the True Story Awards (2021); SOPA Awards (2022 and 2020); Red Ink Awards (2022 and 2017); and the Lorenzo Natali Media Prize (2015). She was also longlisted for the True Story Award 2024 and the One World Media Award (2021). 

She has received reporting grants from the Environmental Reporting Collective (2023); Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and Oxpeckers (2021); the Pulitzer Center (2021); and the  Impact Journalism Grant (2019).

Jha has also conducted programs for Thomson Reuters Foundation to train journalists to report on human trafficking and modern slavery.