By The Wire Staff
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.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
