New Delhi, May 3 (MExN): India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index slipped to 161st from last year’s 150th out of 180 countries, media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said on Wednesday.
The watchdog started publishing the index since 2002 and evaluates press freedom in countries on the basis of five indicators – political, economic, legislative, social and security.
India’s position has slipped over 20 places in recent years. In 2013, it was ranked 140th and ‘recovered’ to 138th in 2018, but slipping further thereafter. Among its neighbours, India is ranked below Pakistan (150th), Afghanistan (152nd), Sri Lanka (135th) and Nepal (95th). It fares better than Bangladesh (163rd) and China (179th).
Norway, Ireland and Denmark hold the top three spots.
The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy” noted the RSF, also known as Reporters Without Borders, while publishing the 2023 Index.
According to RSF, in 2023 since January 1, one journalist has been killed while 10journalists were detained.
It must be noted here that the Union Goverment last year said that it does not agree with the conclusions drawn by the RSF.
In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on July 21, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur cited various reasons including "very low sample size, little or no weightage to fundamentals of democracy, adoption of a methodology which is questionable and non-transparent."
