About Ruchi Kumar

Ruchi Kumar is an independent journalist reporting news and feature stories from South Asia, Middle East and Eastern Europe, covering conflict, politics and development issues, as seen through the gender lens. She is currently based in Istanbul, Turkey and previously lived in Kabul, Afghanistan for over six years.

In 2024, Ruchi Kumar was awarded the Covering Climate Award for a story on the climate-conflict nexus impacting Afghanistan and Iran. Earlier, in 2020, her report on the Iranian deportations of Afghan refugees for Foreign Policy won the Khaled Alkhateb Memorial Award for Best Written Journalism from a Conflict Zone.

Prior to the fall of Afghanistan, she worked on a special series with the support of the Guardian called “Women Report Afghanistan” where we featured stories and reports from Afghan women journalists documenting the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. It provided a unique real-time insight into the crisis as told through reporting by the women of Afghanistan.

Prior to freelancing, Ruchi Kumar was the digital managing editor at Impassion Afghanistan–country’s first digital media agency–overlooking their citizen journalism platform called ‘Paiwandgāh’. She managed a team of five and a network of over 700 citizen journalists, training them to gather and verify real-time news from across 34 provinces of Afghanistan, including some remote and conflict-ridden regions.

Ruchi Kumar strongly believe in the power of collaborative journalism and strive to work with local and international journalists, professionals and activists in creating strong narratives that reflect the political and social realities of the region. Over the years, she has worked with local reporters on many stories of immigration, conflict, climate, women’s and children’s rights, as well as stories of culture and art.