-Hindustan Times In the index released on Wednesday, India was ranked just three places above Pakistan and was one notch below violence-torn Palestine. India slipped three places in the 2017 world press freedom rankings to 136th among 180 countries, the dismal performance blamed on “Modi’s nationalism” and growing “self-censorship” in the mainstream media. In the index released on Wednesday, India was ranked just three places above Pakistan and was one notch below violence-torn...

-Hindustan Times The ministry of information and broadcasting’s advisory to media to exercise restraint in their coverage of violence over Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has once again brought to the fore the issue of social responsibility of the fourth estate. There is a fine line between accuracy and balance and in times of crisis – such as the one being witnessed in the two states – the distinction...

-Live Mint As media ownership passes into many kinds of hands, the sensitivities of corporate and political owners are posing a growing threat to unencumbered reporting State censorship of mainstream media is now passè. No government, at least in our country, has much stomach for it. There is just too much media around, always looking for something to shriek or tweet about. But there is a new beast that the squeamish among...

-The Times of India     Attempt to muzzle newspapers by withdrawing advertising for critical news coverage A new report by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN) has strongly condemned "soft censorship" by governments and regulators as a "very serious threat to media independence and the very viability of media companies". WAN, which is the umbrella organization of newspapers representing more than 18,000 publications and 15,000 online sites in 120 countries...

-The Hindustan Times Eight journalists were killed in India in 2013. This was a jump from the five killed in the preceding year, and three in 2011. If there were 74 instances of censorship in 2012, the following year saw 94 such instances - with the internet being the single biggest casualty of the clamp-down. Also, 19 journalists were attacked in the year. These are some of the findings of Free Speech...