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India is ranked 157th out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontières said on Thursday.

The non-government organisation, also known as Reporters Without Borders, has been publishing the World Press Freedom Index since 2002.

India’s position worsened from the 151st rank in 2025. It remains in the “very serious” category, said Reporters Without Borders.

The organisation said that “legal frameworks are increasingly being weaponised to silence newsrooms” even in democratic countries.

“In India, judicial harassment of independent media is intensifying, driven by the growing use of criminal statutes – defamation and national security laws among them – directly targeting journalists,” said Reporters Without Borders.

The global media watchdog added that, for the first time since the index started, more than half of the countries are in the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom. Only 13.7% of the countries were in this category when the index started in 2002.

The average press freedom score of the 180 countries and territories that had been studied had never been so low, it further said.

The expansion of increasingly restrictive legislative tools, “particularly those linked to national security policies”, have been steadily eroding the right to information, even in democratic countries.

Reporters Without Borders evaluates press freedom in countries on the...

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