New Delhi, May 4: India’s ranking in World Press Freedom Index had fallen to 161 in the list of 180 countries. It is the second time India is slipping in the ranking.
According to a report by global media watchdog “Reporters sans Frontier” alias Reporters without Borders, India is down 11 points in the index this year. “The situation had moved from ‘problematic’ to ‘very bad’ in three countries, including India and Tajikistan,” the report stated.
In its annual report, the RSF has assessed the state of Freedom for media countries. In 2021, India’s ranking was 150, down from ranking of 142 on Press Freedom Index.
The report also stated that violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownerships all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in world’s largest democracy.
The RSF released the report on Wednesday with details of media freedom collected from 180 countries.
Pakistan is ranked 150, seven points up while Nepal is at 95. Sri Lanka is up by 11 points at 135, while Myanmar at 173 has moved three points higher.
The report has stated that Indian media landscape is like India itself – huge and densely populated – and has more than One lakh newspapers, 36,000 weeklies and 380 TV channels.
“Originally a product of anti-colonial movement, the Indian press used to be seen as fairly progressive, but things changed drastically when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister and engineered a spectacular reapproachment between his party, the BJP and the big families dominating the media,” the report stated.
The report further stated that Mukesh Ambani owns more than 70 media outlets that are followed by atleast 800 million Indians.
“Indian journalists who are too critical of the government are subjected to all-out harassment and attack campaigns,” the report stated.
The concludes by saying that at the national level, the Central government has seen that it can exploit this to impose it’s own narrative and is now spending more than 130 billion rupees a year on advertisements in the print and online media alone”
EOM
