India Ranked 142nd In Press Freedom; Centre Doesn’t Agree, Questions Methodology

New Delhi: India has been ranked at the 142nd place out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index.

Reacting to the findings, the Union Home Ministry has said it does not agree with them. Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai made the statement in the Lok Sabha in response to a question by Congress MP Manish Tewari.

The index was released by media watchdog ‘Reporters Without Borders’ in March.
Rai said on Tuesday that the government does not subscribe to ‘Reporters Without Borders’ views and country rankings. He alleged that the index had a “very low sample size, little or no weightage to fundamentals of democracy, adoption of a methodology which is questionable and non-transparent, lack of clear definition of press freedom, etc.”

In July, ‘Reporters Without Borders’ had also named Prime Minister Narendra Modi in its list of 37 heads of states who massively cracked down on press freedom. The watchdog labelled them as “press freedom predators.”

In a separate report in December, ‘Reporters Without Borders’ had listed India among the five most dangerous nations in terms of journalists killed across the world in 2021, Scroll.in reported.