India has slid down 2 places in the annual ‘World Press Freedom Index‘. The latest ranking revealed for the year 2020 saw India moving down to 142nd spot in the world. The index from Reporters Without Borders was released on Tuesday.
The index ranks 180 countries across the world in terms of the freedom that the press and journalists enjoy in the state. “With no murders of journalists in India in 2019, as against six in 2018, the security situation for the country’s media might seem, on the face of it, to have improved”, said the report about India.
Countries like Nepal (ranked 112) and the terror hit Afghanistan (ranked 122) featured better than India on the ranking. “India’s score in this year’s World Press Freedom Index is heavily affected by the situation in Kashmir,” said the index. “After rescinding the state’s autonomy, the federal government shut down fixed-line and mobile Internet connections completely for several months, making it virtually impossible for journalists to cover what was happening in what has become a vast open prison, it added.
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The index also said that the “coordinated hate campaigns” waged on social networks against journalists who dare to speak or write about subjects that annoy Hindutva followers are “alarming”. China was placed 177th which is topped by Norway with North Korea at the bottom.
