India ranks lowly 136 in World Press Freedom Index 2015

The Reporters Without Borders RWB on 12 February 2015 released the World Press Freedom Index WPFI 2015 In the WPFI 2015 India was placed at 136th position out of 180 nations that were surveyed worldwide in terms of press freedomIn the top of the list were three Scandinavian countries Finland on the 1st position followed by Norway and Denmark At the other end of the scale Turkmenistan North Korea and Eritrea were the worst performers securing the last places in the indexThe 2015 World Press Freedom Index highlights the worldwide deterioration in freedom of information in 2014Declines in the WPFI 2015gtgt Andorra with 32nd position witnessed the sharpest fall in the index It fell by 27 places as a result of the many conflicts of interests and lack of independence of its media from financial political and religious interestsgtgt In Asia East Timor fell by 26 places to 103rd position In SubSaharan Africa Congo fell 25 places to achieve 107th rank in the index gtgt Western Europe saw numerous countries in decline Italy was ranked at 73rd position it fell 24 places Iceland was down by 13 places to get 21st rank in the index by paying the price of worsening relations between politicians and media gtgt Pressure on independent media continued to intensify in Russia which fell by 4 places to be placed at 152nd rankgtgt The United States was placed at 49th position by falling down by 3 places In 2014 the New York Times journalist James Risen came under US government pressure to reveal his sourcesThe risers in the WPFI 2015gtgt Mongolia rose 34 places and was ranked at 54th position the Indexrsquos biggest jump gtgt Tonga strengthened its position by achieving 44th rank due to an independent press It rose by 19 placesgtgt The end of longrunning political crisis in Madagascar boosted the country by 17 places It stood at 64th positiongtgt In Europe Georgia continued to rise for the third year by securing 69th position up by 15 places gtgt In 86th place Ivory Coast was up by 15 places It continued to emerge from the political and social crisis that plunged the country into fullscale civil war in 2010 gtgt Nepal at 105th position was up by 15 places as the country witnessed drop in violence by the security forces against journalists especially at demonstrationsgtgt Tunisia rose seven places to achieve 126th rank a relative increase although in absolute terms the country stagnated gtgt A cause for satisfaction was Brazil which rose by 12 places to get 99th rank in the indexgtgt In Americas Mexico managed to pull itself up four places it got 148th rankTop 10 in WPFI 2015India in World Press Freedom Index 2015In WPFI 2015 India has shown improvement from its rank of 140 in 2014 However Indiarsquos overall score declined from 4034 to 4049 In 2014 India stood at 140th positionAbout World Press Freedom Index WPFIgtgt World Press Freedom Index is produced by Francebased international nongovernmental organization Reporters Without Borders RWB WPFI aims to promotes and defends freedom of information and freedom of the pressgtgt The WPFI ranks the performance of countries according to index calculated based upon various parametersgtgt These parameters include media pluralism and independence respect for the safety and freedom of journalists and the legislative institutional and infrastructural environment in which the media operate