RSF lambasts govt of France for inviting PM Modi as chief guest in Bastille Day celebrations

PARIS, July 15 (SABAH): The Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has lambasted French government for inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to France where he was guest of honor during France’s Bastille Day celebrations, yesterday.

Narendra Modi was the guest of honour during France’s Bastille Day celebrations on the other day where he watched French and Indian troops parade on the Champs Elysées avenue along with French President Emmanuel Macron.

The RSF in a series of tweets said Modi is not a friend of journalists. It said India is ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index, adding Modi is in the list of 37 heads of state or government that the RSF has identified as ‘predators of press freedom’. It cited various examples of victimization of journalists and media houses by the Modi government.

The Modi regime arrested journalist Irfan Meraj from Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir under sedition for simply wanting to do his job and 11 journalists are currently being arbitrarily detained in India. In February, the premises of the BBC World in New Delhi were raided in retaliation for the broadcast of a documentary critical of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the broadcast of the film has since been banned in India.

India is among the deadliest countries for media workers. On June 2, near Bombay, reporter Shashikant Warishe was brutally murdered for having investigated the activities of a local potentate.

The last major independent channel in India, New Delhi Television (NDTV) has seen its journalists resign en masse since it was acquired by the multi-billionaire Gautam Adani, who openly displays his closeness to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. RSF denounces, behind this takeover, a phenomenon of oligarchic capture of the media landscape which clearly jeopardizes the pluralism of public debate in India.

Journalist after journalist, editorial erosion continues. The latest example, on January 31, journalist Nidhi Razdan, former editor-in-chief of NDTV’s all-info channel, announced that she was leaving the group that employed her. Three days earlier, another star NDTV presenter, Sreenivasan Jain, announced his resignation after nearly three decades of service. At the head of the flagship shows “Reality Check” and “Truth vs Hype”, he joined the channel in 1995.

Modi is preparing to pass a law that will allow him to decide what information he considers true or false on the Internet, regardless of its journalistic legitimacy.