Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières – RSF) has said that India still remains a country that is “bad” for journalism and it ranks 142nd out of 180 countries, the same position it held last year.
RSF in its 2021 World Press Freedom Index labelled India as “one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists trying to do their job properly”. It cited police violence against journalists, “ambushes” by political activists, and “reprisals instigated by criminal groups or corrupt officers”.
The report pointed out that ever since the general elections in the spring of 2019, won overwhelmingly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, pressure has increased on the media to toe the Hindu nationalist government’s line.
