ADVOCACY

Since 2021, Manisha has served as a judge for the News & Documentary Emmy® Awards. In 2023 and 2024, she served as a jury member for the investigative documentary competition and grant for the Digital Investigative Journalism Awards, Italy.

In 2021, during Manisha’s time off work to write her PhD, Manisha was volunteer strategic coordinator for an international coalition to evacuate high-risk Afghan civilians from on the last flight out of Kabul before the Taliban takeover and US troop withdrawal, which involved lengthy negotiations with multiple foreign governments/politicians, the Taliban, and navigating ground challenges, including Islamic State-K bomb threats to get 200+ people out. Their unlikely success made international headlines [The Times (UK), NPR (USA) and Der Spiegel (Germany)].

She was a founding member of the Race Beat, a national network of journalists of colour in the UK created in 2018, and a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, a BIPOC women’s collective of documentary filmmakers across the world. 

In 2018, she also served as Director of the Future of Journalism network which brought together award-winning journalists and cutting-edge developers working on automation and security tools for reporters, including Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, BellingCat, Forbidden Stories, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and BBC R&D.

Manisha formerly worked as an activist for women’s rights and press freedom in India. In 2015, she was appointed director of Hysteria, one of the first national feminist conventions in India, in association with the Goethe-Institut.

Manisha has worked with survivors of domestic violence, and advised human rights defenders and journalists on information security at international events.

She has chaired international events including at the Jaipur Literature Festival (on the Israel-Palestine conflict) and Amnesty International (on press freedom) with Stephen Dunbar Johnson (President International of the New York Times Company), and Hollaback (on countering sexual harassment post #Metoo).