Slips to 157th rank among 180 countries
NEW YORK (TIP): India fell to 157th rank in 180 countries, even as Palestine stood at 156th, one spot ahead, according to Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index 2026, released on Thursday. Last year, India was marginally ahead when it was ranked at 151 and Palestine was at 163.
Incidentally, India is not only behind Palestine, but also behind Tajikistan (155), Laos (154), Pakistan (153), Bangladesh (152) and Cambodia (151). It ranks above only 23 countries, the last being Eritrea.
The decline is visible across all five indicators, which the RSF tracks — economic, legal, security, political and social environment for journalism. It is the legal indicator that has suffered the sharpest collapse this year, deteriorating in more than 60 per cent of the countries — 110 out of 180 — between 2025 and 2026.
India is explicitly named among those where legal conditions for journalism have worsened most severely.
Meanwhile, the RSF itself has described this year’s index as the bleakest since it started publishing 25 years ago. More than half the world’s countries fall under the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom.
Norway continues to retain the top spot for the 10th consecutive year. Eritrea has held the last spot for the third consecutive year, while the United States, under Donald Trump, has dropped seven places to 64th — pushed down by his systematic policy of attacking the press, detentions and deportation of journalists and the dismantling of the US Agency for Global Media, which led to the closure or downsizing of Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.
Syria, after being relegated for years among the bottom 10 nations, has jumped 36 places to 141st following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in December 2025. The steepest fall has been in Niger.
The sharpest overall decline this year is in the index’s legal indicator, which measures the legislative and judicial environment for journalists. The RSF report specifically names India among the countries where the legal environment for journalism deteriorated. The others named in the same group are Egypt, Israel and Georgia.
The RSF describes the global criminalization of journalism as a phenomenon rooted in the misuse of national security laws, emergency legislation and common law. Russia has become its specialist practitioner, holding 48 journalists behind bars as of April.
(Source: TNS)
Be the first to comment