The report describes India as “one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the media” and notes that “journalists are exposed to all kinds of physical violence, including police violence, ambushes by political activists and deadly reprisals from criminal groups or corrupt local officials.”

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, in a written response to the Rajya Sabha, said the government disagreed with the conclusions drawn by the organization for various reasons, including “the very small sample size, little or no importance given to the fundamental principles of democracy, the adoption of a questionable and non-transparent methodology”.

The report had also mentioned that “supporters of Hindutva, the ideology that spawned the Hindu far right, launch online attacks against all views that conflict with their thinking.”

Thakur was answering separate questions from Rajya Sabha opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge and AAP member Sanjay Singh.

The minister said the government is committed to guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution.

Contrary to the government’s public comments on the matter, the Center has taken a series of actions in the face of falling rankings in global indexes such as the Freedom Index.

On May 10, The Indian Express reported how the Economic Division of the Ministry of Finance in 2020 has devised a strategy to counter “negative commentary” on India by global think tanks, indexes and the media, fearing that this does not lead to a downgrading of the sovereign rating. to “junk”.

In June 2020, Sanjeev Sanyal, then Senior Economic Advisor at the Ministry of Finance, prepared a presentation titled “Subjective Factors Impacting India’s Sovereign Ratings: What Can We Do About It?” — for internal circulation within the government. The 36-page presentation, seen by The Indian Express, noted that 18-26% of a country’s sovereign rating is based on subjective factors such as ratings on governance, political stability, rule of law , corruption, freedom of the press, etc.

Soon after, the government decided to monitor global indices through the Niti Aayog and create a dashboard for it.

In July 2020, Niti Aayog hosted a virtual workshop with 47 central ministries and departments, chaired by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, in line with a Center decision to monitor India’s performance in some global indices. “The 29 global indexes, released by 19 international agencies, are attributed to 18 ministries and nodal departments of the Government of India,” Niti Aayog said in a statement at the time.

Subsequently, in April 2021, the Legislative Department of the Ministry of Justice also wrote to several ministries and departments on April 1 for details of the metrics used in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index rankings. , as part of a larger exercise under the aegis of Niti Aayog. to monitor metrics used in major global indices, including Ease of Doing Business, Global Press Freedom, Human Development, Global Innovation and Global Climate Risk.

In Parliament, Thakur said that the Press Council of India (PCI) was established under the Press Council Act 1978 primarily to safeguard press freedom and improve the standards of newspapers and news agencies in the country. He added that the PCI examines complaints filed “by the press” regarding the restriction of press freedom.

In response to Kharge’s question about the arrest of journalists, the minister also said that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not keep separate data on attacks on journalists.