After 2014, there has been a downslide in media freedom, N. Ram, Director, The Hindu Group Publishing Private Limited, said here on Friday.
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While speaking at the launch of the Tamil translation of the book Keeping Up the Good Fight by online news portal NewsClick’s founder and editor Prabir Purkayastha, titled Porattam Thodarkiradhu, Mr. Ram said this downslide had been tracked in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. In 2013, India was ranked 140 out of 180 countries, and in 2023, India’s rank sank further to 161 out of 180 countries.
“The Committee to Protect Journalists compiled the Global Impunity Index (journalists are murdered in connection with their work but the cases are unsolved). There are 12 countries that are identified as the worst in this respect in 2023 – Syria, Somalia, Haiti, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, Philippines, Myanmar, Brazil, Pakistan, and India,” he said. Mr. Ram said the assault on NewsClick was not a police story but a political dispensation targeting journalists.
Former Judge of the Madras High Court K. Chandru said that in the book, Mr. Purkayastha talked about the emergency in 1975 and the undeclared emergency now, which had created a grim situation. “The book clearly explains, from the time of independence, in some way or the other, there were laws to imprison people without investigation. We have also opposed them. Today, we are witnessing a much worse situation. Fascism has gradually grown in recent years and is rearing its ugly head now. Intellectuals are being imprisoned,” he said.
Sudhanva Deshpande of LeftWord Books, S. Subbarao, translator of the book Porattam Thodarkiradhu, and G. Ramakrishnan, Politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and journalists Kavitha Muralidharan, and Haseef M. were at the event.