Kanika Mishra is the first woman to receive an international award for 'courage in editorial cartooning'. The award will be given by Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) on October 11 in San Francisco, USA.

Each year CRNI gives this award to a cartoonist who demonstrates exceptional courage in the exercise of free speech rights under extraordinary circumstances. Mishra was selected for her valour and exercise of free speech by continuing to draw cartoons against religious leader Asaram Bapu even after receiving numerous threats. She shares her award with cartoonist Majda Shaheen from Palestine.

Joel Pett, president of CRNI, in a press release stated that Kanika Mishra reacted in the most powerful way she could and continued to portray Asaram Bapu's outrageous hypocrisy through her cartoons. "This award represents all the girls in India. It means that Indian girls are brave too. Now, people should stop seeing India as a place where women have no voice," said 34-year-old Mishra who received death threats from Asaram's followers.

Mishra had drawn her first cartoon on Asaram Bapu when the news of him being missing came out. Asaram Bapu had been accused of sexually abuse right after he made a critical statement regarding the Delhi rape case. On August 31, 2013 Mishra drew a 16-year-old girl and named her Karnika. 'Karnika Kahen' (Karnika says) became a regular comment on religion and politics on Facebook and Twitter. She drew her second cartoon in four hours right after the news of Bapu getting arrested came out and published it online. "Once the TV channels picked up my cartoons, I started getting threat calls. The followers of the godman hacked my internet accounts and took my pictures and started blackmailing me to take my page and cartoons down. They made a vulgar page about me and drew obscene cartoons on me. My husband and I couldn't sleep at night and didn't venture out of the house," said Mishra, who however, did not stop drawing.

Her mother was worried about her security and asked her to draw cartoons for children instead. "The more these religious followers attacked me, the stronger my cartoons became. I knew that if I remained silent, it would be a great disservice to Indian women," said Mishra.

She claims that there was no support from senior Indian cartoonists who termed her work juvenile and pathetic. She says the reason is because she made unbiased political commentary on all powerful parties which didn't sit well with them.

Born and brought up in Lucknow, Mishra had a penchant for cartoons even as a child. She completed her degree in fine arts from there and began drawing cartoons for children in the local paper Swatantra Bharat when she was 18-years-old. After graduation, she left for Delhi where she worked with various media houses but was not taken seriously as a political cartoonist. "In India, people can't think of a woman having political opinions, especially a woman cartoonist. New talent and ideas are not welcome. I wanted to be creative freedom and unbiased but companies are polarised," she said. She settled in Mumbai 10 years ago and runs a graphics website with her husband and currently does freelance animation and illustration projects.

She wishes to make Karnika Kahen a regular animation piece on social networking sites that comments on social issues.