MUMBAI: Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times has bagged the top Pulitzer award in International Reporting category for his reports on famine and conflict in East Africa at the 96th annual Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music, which were announced by Columbia University.

Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle based weekly publication, has won the award in Feature Writing category for his story of a woman who survived a brutal attack that took the life of her partner.

The Pulitzer Prize in ?Commentary? category was awarded to Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune for her wide range of columns on cultural life of the city. In the ?Criticism? category, Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe won for his elegant film criticism.

The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper received the prize in the ?Public Service? category for its exploration of pervasive violence in the city?s schools to illuminate crimes committed by children against children and to stir reforms to improve safety for teachers and students.

The prize for ?Breaking News Reporting? category was won by Tuscaloosa News Staff, for its enterprising coverage of a deadly tornado, using social media as well as traditional reporting to provide real-time updates, help locate missing people and produce in-depth print accounts even after power disruption forced the paper to publish at another plant 50 miles away.

Associated Press journalists Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley were declared joint winners in ?Investigative Reporting? category along with Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times.

The AP trio was awarded for their spotlighting of the New York Police Department?s clandestine spying programme that monitored daily life in Muslim communities, resulting in congressional calls for a federal investigation, and a debate over the proper role of domestic intelligence gathering.

The duo of The Seattle Times were chosen for their investigation of how a little known governmental body in Washington State moved vulnerable patients from safer pain-control medication to methadone, a cheaper but more dangerous drug coverage that prompted statewide health warnings.

The prize for ?Explanatory Reporting? was awarded to David Kocieniewski of The New York Times. Sara Ganim and members of The Patriot-News Staff won the prize for ?Local Reporting?.

The prize for ?National Reporting?, which is given for distinguished example of reporting on national affairs, was bestowed on David Wood of The Huffington Post for his riveting exploration of the physical and emotional challenges facing American soldiers severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan during a decade of war.

The judges declined to award a prize for editorial writing.

There was also no winner of the award for fiction for the first time in 35 years, though it was shortlisted to three novels - David Foster Wallace?s The Pale King, Karen Russell?s Swamplandia and Denis Johnson?s novella Train Dreams.

The Pulitzers are given out annually by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of journalists and others. Each award carries a $10,000 prize except for the public service award, which is a gold medal.

Matt Wuerker of Politico, Massoud Hossaini of Agence France-Presse, and Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post bagged the prize in Editorial Cartooning, Breaking News Photography and Feature Photography respectively.