- Sunday, February 23, 2025
India’s rank was found to be behind those of Turkey (158), Pakistan (152) and Sri Lanka (150).
By: indiaweekly.biz Staff
INDIA has been ranked 159 among 180 nations in the latest annual World Press Freedom Index unveiled by Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières or RSF), an international non-profit body. It was two spots better than 161 in 2023.
The RSF report was published on the World Press Freedom Day.
The Scandinavian nations were doing the best in the list. While Norway was at the top of the table, Denmark was ranked second and Sweden came third. The US slumped 10 places from 45 in 2023 to 55 this year.
In its analysis, RSF said “press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy’ which is India. Allegations have been made time and again that press freedom in India has slumped after Narendra Modi became the prime minister of the country in 2014.
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The report said that nine journalists and one media worker have been detained in India as of today. However, no journalist or media worker has been killed in the country since January 1 this year.
India’s rank was found to be behind those of Turkey (158), Pakistan (152) and Sri Lanka (150). Palestine’s rank dropped one rank from 156 to 157 despite the ceaselessly exploitative situation caused by its military conflict with Israel, which has led to deaths of several journalists — in fact the highest number dead in any conflict in the current decade.
The RSF’s ranking was based on five parameters — political context, legal framework, economic context, socio-cultural context and safety.
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The RSF report said the media in India have fallen into an “unofficial state of emergency” ever since Modi took office a decade ago and “engineered a spectacular rapprochement between his party, the BJP, and the big families dominating the media”.
“Reliance Industries group’s magnate Mukesh Ambani, a personal friend of the prime minister, owns more than 70 media outlets that are followed by at least 800 million Indians. The NDTV channel’s acquisition at the end of 2022 by Gautam Adani, a tycoon who is also close to Modi, signalled the end of pluralism in the mainstream media. Recent years have also seen the rise of “Godi media” (pun for designating Modi’s “dogs”) – media outlets that mix populism and pro-BJP propaganda,” it added.
The report also expressed less enthusiasm over India’s ranking getting better by two places in the index, saying some countries’ rises in the index were misleading since their rise in the index happened since other countries that were previously above them slumped.
“This is the case with India (159th), which was pushed up two places despite recently adopting more draconian laws. Its new position is still unworthy of a democracy. Similarly, Hong Kong (135th) rose five places despite a fall in its score due to an increase in the persecution of journalists under the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020,” it said.
The report also said that “press freedom around the world is being threatened by the very people who should be its guarantors – political authorities”.
Indian journalists who are very critical of the government are subjected to harassment campaigns by BJP-backed trolls, it added.
The situation also “remains very worrisome in Kashmir”, the report said, claiming that reporters there are often harassed by police and paramilitaries, with some being subjected to so-called “provisional” detention for several years.
The press freedom situation has worsened in the Asia-Pacific region, the report added, highlighting that 26 of the 32 countries and territories in the region saw their scores fall in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index.
However, the Indian authorities have refused to buy the rankings. In 2023, the country’s information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur told the parliament why his government differed on the index. Among the reasons he had said were low sample size, little weightage to fundamentals of democracy and methodology which is allegedly questionable.
