India’s press freedom has rapidly declined in recent years: Data

India's press freedom ranking improves to 159 in 2024, but still lags behind many countries, according to Reporters Without Borders.

India is ranked 159 out of the 180 nations considered in the 2024 edition of the press freedom index, published by the organisation Reporters Without Borders. While this is a marginal improvement from last year, India’s performance in the recent past has been consistently poor.

Chart 1 | The chart shows India’s ranking in the press freedom index over the years.

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It is important to note that India has been ranked over 100 since 2003, which means that press freedom has been poor for a very long time. However, press freedom has eroded rapidly in recent years, with India being ranked 161 out of 180 nations last year, the lowest ever for the country. In the 2024 index, its ranking improved by two places to 159.

According to the index, press freedom in India is currently comparable to that of the occupied Palestinian territories; the UAE, an absolute monarchy; Turkey, a flawed democracy; and Russia, an authoritarian regime.

Table 2 | The table shows the 2024 press freedom rankings of select countries.

This year too, the Scandinavian countries — Norway, Denmark, and Sweden — were the best performers, while Eritrea, Syria, and Afghanistan were the worst. Among the BRICS countries (the old list), Brazil and South Africa enjoy greater press freedom than India, whereas China and Russia are ranked lower. Among South Asian nations, except Bangladesh, all the other countries rank better than India in the latest list.