Indian-origin engineer Palani Kumanan shares Pulitzer Prize in the US

NEW YORK: An Indian-origin software engineer in the US has shared this year's Pulitzer Prize for graphics team of investigative journalism, in growing recognition of the importance of using IT tools in reporting.

Palani Kumanan, who is a software architect with Dow Jones that publishes the Wall Street Journal, was a part of the winning project's graphics team.

The Journal won the top journalism award announced on Monday for its mammoth investigative project, " Medicare Unmasked."

He shared the prize along with members of the Journal's graphics team Martin Burch, Chris Canipe, Madeline Farbman, Jon Keegan and Stuart Thompson.

"Congrats to the great team at the WSJ! -- Wall Street Journal wins Pulitzer Prize for 'Medicare Unmasked' @WSJ," tweeted Michael Siconolfi, the newspaper's investigations editor.

Kumanan shared Pulitizer investigative reporting in growing recognition of the importance of using information technology tools for reporting as well as for presentation.

Kumanan, a graduate of the PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, developed the interactive database on Medicare billing used to analyse government payments made to over 880,000 medical service providers, including doctors and hospitals.