Journalist Rana Ayyub was stopped by immigration officials at Mumbai airport on Tuesday while she was on her way to board a flight to London. The officials stopped her on the basis of a Look-out circular issued by the Enforcement Directorate as she allegedly failed to comply with the agency’s summons. Ms. Ayyub, in a tweet, explained that she was stopped while she was going to board her flight to deliver a speech on the intimidation of journalists with International Center for Journalists. Posting a subsequent tweet, she said these events “have been planned and publicised all over my social media for weeks. Yet, curiously the Enforcement directorate summon arrived in my mail much after I was stopped at the immigration. What do you fear?”. The issue has put a spotlight on the deteriorating press freedom in India
- India ranked 142 among 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index
- In 2021, seven journalists were imprisoned in India, the highest in the last 3 decades
- Data show that journalists enjoy less freedom than citizens in the country
World press freedom
The chart shows the press freedom rank and index of select countries in 2021. India was ranked 142 of the 180 nations analysed, lower than Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan
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Over time
The chart shows India’s rank in world press freedom index in the last nine years. While India has been ranking consistently low in the past few years, it seems to be worsening with each year
Journalists attacked
The chart shows the number of journalists imprisoned/killed in India between 1992 and 2021. In 2021, seven journalists were imprisoned, which is the highest number in almost the last three decades
Not so free press
India’s score of 66 on the citizens’ political rights and civil liberties indicator (represented by freedom score 2019, horizontal axis) was relatively high. However, the country’s press freedom index score (vertical axis) of 46.56 was relatively low. In India, the freedom of journalists seems to be more curtailed than the freedom of citizens. Only a few other countries have this distinction
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters without Borders
Also read: India again placed at 142nd rank in press freedom
