India Today Originals wins AACA 2026 Best Documentary History award

MUMBAI: Five decades of history, one award-winning chapter, India Today Originals has added another accolade to its anniversary celebrations. India Today Originals has been declared the National Winner for Best Documentary History at the Asian Academy Creative Awards (AACA) 2026 for Episode 2 of its five-part documentary series, India Today @ 50. Titled ‘Era of Identity, Insurgency & Terror’, the episode looks at the decade from 1985 to 1995, examining a period marked by some of the most complex and consequential developments in contemporary India.

The national win recognises the episode as the winner of its category in India and gives it a place in the regional competition of the Asian Academy Creative Awards. The recognition therefore takes the documentary beyond a domestic honour, putting the India Today Originals production in contention at the wider Asian awards stage.

India Today @ 50 was created to mark the India Today Group’s 50th anniversary and traces five decades of India’s journey through a five-part documentary series. Rather than looking at the anniversary simply as a milestone, the series uses the Group’s half-century journey as a lens through which to revisit the events, shifts and moments that have shaped the country.

Episode 2 turns its attention to the years between 1985 and 1995, a decade in which questions of identity, insurgency and terror became deeply intertwined with India’s contemporary political and social landscape. The episode explores this period and its defining developments, placing the decade within the broader arc of the country’s evolution.

The subject matter gives the winning episode a particularly significant place within the five-part series. While each instalment examines a different chapter in India’s journey, ‘Era of Identity, Insurgency & Terror’ focuses on a period where questions of belonging, conflict and national security carried consequences that extended well beyond individual events.

The AACA recognition also comes as India Today Group completes 50 years of journalism. For India Today Originals, the award marks a moment where the Group’s long-running journalistic archive and its newer documentary storytelling ambitions meet on the same platform.

The series seeks to bring events and moments from the past to a wider contemporary audience, using documentary storytelling to add context to the headlines and turning points that have shaped India. Its approach allows the five decades covered by India Today @ 50 to be viewed not merely as a sequence of historical events, but as a continuing story of a country changing with each era.

With Episode 2 now recognised as the National Winner for Best Documentary History, the series has also secured a route to the regional AACA competition. The national designation is therefore both an award for the episode and a qualification for the next stage of the Asian Academy Creative Awards.

For India Today Originals, the recognition adds an international-facing chapter to a project built around a distinctly Indian milestone. As the India Today Group looks back on 50 years, India Today @ 50 is using its documentary arm to revisit the decades that came before and, with this AACA win, that historical rewind has picked up some fresh silverware along the way.