New Delhi: India is 157th out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders today, April 30. In the 2025 index, India was at 151, so the current ranking marks a six-place drop.The journalism watchdog, originally called Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), notes that the average score of all 180 countries and territories on their indices has never been “so low” in 25 years. For the first time in the history of Index, over half of the world’s countries now fall into the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom.The index is led by Norway, the Netherlands, Estonia, Denmark and Sweden. The countries at the end are Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, North Korea and Eritrea.The RSF says that the index’s analysis highlights an alarming deterioration in the conditions for journalism in many parts of the world, despite some isolated improvements, as 100 out of 180 countries and territories have seen their press freedom score decline. The index’s legal indicator has declined the most over the past year, a clear sign that journalism is increasingly criminalised worldwide. In the Americas, the situation has evolved significantly, with the United States dropping seven places and several Latin American countries sliding deeper into a spiral of violence and repression.Almost all of India’s neighbours rank higher than India – Pakistan is 153rd, Bhutan is 150th, Nepal is 87th, Sri Lanka is 134th, and Bangladesh is 152nd. China, however, is 178th.At 157 is India, a place below Palestine, where Israel has been carrying out a genocide for the past two years. In 2024, India was at 159th place.The RSF notes the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party behind the crisis of press freedom in India, saying:With a rise in violence against journalists, highly concentrated media ownership, and outlets with increasingly overt political alignment, press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy,” ruled since 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right.The index maps several indicators – political, economic, legal, social, and security. India’s scores are as follows.The country fact-file notes that while the the media landscape is abundant in the country, “India media has fallen into an ‘unofficial state of emergency’ since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 and engineered a spectacular rapprochement between his party, the BJP, and the big families dominating the media.”The RSF notes how Reliance Industries group’s magnate Mukesh Ambani, a close friend of the prime minister, owns more than 70 media outlets and how the acquisition of NDTV at the end of 2022 by Gautam Adani, another tycoon who is also close to Modi, signalled the end of pluralism in the mainstream media.The RSF notes the the rise of “godi media” – a play on Modi’s name and the word for “lapdogs” to observe how “through pressure and influence, the Indian model of a pluralist press is being called into question.”“The prime minister does not hold press conferences, grants interviews only to journalists and YouTubers who cover him in a favourable light, and is highly critical of those who do not show allegiance. Indian journalists are subjected to harassment campaigns by BJP-backed trolls,” the RSF says.It says that governments have never shied away from using colonial-era laws, such as those relating to sedition, defamation and anti-state activities, to suppress the media. Anti-terrorism laws, too, are increasingly used against journalists, it notes.Since India’s media are primarily funded by advertising revenue, the main source of which is the government, both central and state governments are in a position to and do put pressure on the media to censor their content, the RSF finds.Under Narendra Modi, billions of dollars of public funds have been spent on advertising, it notes.Diversity is missing in news rooms. “The journalism profession, especially in managerial positions, remains the prerogative of Hindu men from upper castes – a bias that has repercussions on the angles and subjects of articles and reports. For example, on major evening talk shows, women make up less than 15% of the guests. Hindu nationalist ideology has become a dominant force, shaping current affairs, framing political debate and restricting the space in which dissenting or minority voices can be heard,” it says, adding that most TV media outlets, particularly in Hindi, devote a significant portion of their airtime to religious news, sometimes openly advocating hatred of Muslims.In addition, with an average of two to three journalists killed due to their work every year, India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for media professionals, it notes.The paragraph on safety is particularly damning:“Journalists who are critical of the government are routinely subjected to online harassment, intimidation, threats and physical attacks, as well as criminal prosecutions and arbitrary arrests. They can be victims of violence, from police officers and political activists, as well as criminal groups and corrupt local officials. Proponents of Hindutva, the nationalist ideology of the Hindu far right, call for popular revenge against critics branded as “traitors” and “anti-national”. Terrifying coordinated campaigns of hatred and calls for murder are conducted on social media, campaigns especially violent when they target women journalists, whose personal data is divulged. The situation is also very worrisome for journalists covering environmental topics or news in Kashmir, where reporters are often harassed by police and paramilitaries, with some being subjected to so-called “provisional” detention for several years.”