Press Freedom Rankings are an annual rankings of countries published by an organisation named Reporters Without Borders. This ranking is that organisation’s own assessment of the degree of freedom that journalists, news organisations, and netizens have in that particular country.
The findings are carried out with the help of a questionnaire and complimentary indicators. India for some reason hasn’t performed too well in the index, but in recent days it seems to have started to attract the attention of left-liberals.
The rankings of this year were out back in March and time and again get raked up by leftists to insinuate that rankings have worsened under the Modi government:
India slips to 136 on World Press Freedom Index–behind Palestine, Afghanistan, Uganda, Chad, Kuwait, UAE and Burma. https://t.co/9caj9NaEMY
— Mitali Saran (@mitalisaran) October 10, 2017
Even a filmmaker decided to take potshots:
That’s super.. https://t.co/eFnZgex9s8
— Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) October 10, 2017
The Modi hating cop later copied Mitali Saran’s tweet to further spread the propaganda:
India slips to 136 on World Press Freedom Index–behind Palestine, Afghanistan, Uganda, Chad, Kuwait, UAE and Burma. https://t.co/UVr6z6plVq
— Sanjiv Bhatt (IPS) (@sanjivbhatt) October 10, 2017
Journalists also didn’t stop from tweeting the news:
This year, #India slipped three positions down on the World Press Freedom Index. We are below Palestine, Afghanistan, UAE.
— Deepal Trivedi (@DeepalMirror) October 11, 2017
So what is the real story. 136 is certainly not a good rank to have, but has the situation deteriorated under the Modi government?
Predictably what they didn’t tell you the whole story. Soon after the tweets by leftists, a twitter user put out India’s press freedom graph over the years:
India’s Press Freedom ranking deteriorated from 106 to 140 between 2005 and 2014. How many Left Liberals cried back then pic.twitter.com/BUr7XNPcwo
— Deepak Singh (@smarket) September 9, 2017
As seen from Deepak’s graph, the situation had gradually worsened ever since UPA came to power. This is another look at the YOY ratings:
So as clearly seen, India’s ranking during UPA’s 1st year in-charge was 105 but it steadily came down to 140 within a decade. As can be seen from the chart, the situation has marginally improved ever since Modi took charge.
So clearly the UPA periods saw a systematic erosion of press-freedom in the country but they almost predictably don’t find a mention during the current scheme of things.
