World Press Freedom Day: Press freedom in India going down
The World Press Freedom Day this year has come with the increasing disheartening state of press freedom in India. The World Press Freedom Index has India going further down the ladder—from 150 in 2022 to 161 in 2023, among 180 countries.
Today is World Press Freedom Day. However, India, traditionally known as a country with a free press, has seen an increasing lack of press freedom over the nine years of the BJP government in power at the Centre. This was reflected in the again in this year’s World Press Freedom Index, where India slipped 11 positions.
The 2023 edition of the annual index, published by the global media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF, derived from its original French name, Reporters Sans Frontieres), has ranked India at a lowly 161 (out of 180, for 180 countries).
The report points out two aspects of India’s abysmal performance: The country going from ‘problematic’ to ‘very bad’ (because of the slide in ranking) and the fettering of the “free flow of information” because of the “acquisition of media outlets by oligarchs who maintain close ties with political leaders”.
In a joint statement, the Indian Women’s Press Corps, Press Club of India and Press Association voiced their concern over the dip in the index, saying the media has a crucial role in “developing democracies in the Global South where deep pockets of inequities exist”, to sustain which, among other things, “the constraints on press freedom due to hostile working conditions like contractorization” need to be “challenged” because “insecure working conditions can never contribute to a free press”.
According to the United Nations website, “World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO’s General Conference”. May 3 was chosen because it was “the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek”.
