New Delhi, May 3: On Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its 21st edition of the World Press Freedom Index, revealing India’s rank as 161 out of 180 countries, an 11-place drop from 2022.
RSF cited several factors for India’s decline in press freedom, including violence against journalists, partisan media, and media ownership concentration. India is now included among the 31 countries where the situation for journalists is “very serious”, says the report.
India’s low rank in the Security indicator category is particularly worrying, with only eight countries ranked worse out of 180. India ranks worse than all other countries in the world, except for China, Mexico, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, and Myanmar, in that order.
The media landscape in India has several serious problems, according to the RSF, including the concentration of ownership and a lack of diversity in newsrooms. The report notes that charges of sedition and criminal defamation are increasingly being used against journalists critical of the government, and that there is targeted harassment of women journalists online.
The RSF report highlights that India is not doing well even in terms of journalists’ safety, with an average of three or four journalists killed in connection with their work every year. Even within South Asia, India is among the worst performers in the index, with Pakistan ranking several places ahead of it.
