India / Asia

  
An Indian paramilitary trooper stands guard on a road in Srinagar, Kashmir's largest city, on September 7, 2019. Since the government stripped the region of its limited autonomous status and imposed a communication blackout in early August, Kashmir’s news media has faced a deep existential crisis. (AFP/Tauseef Mustafa)

Kashmir’s news media faces existential crisis amid restrictions, arrests

On August 5, the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a strict communication blackout in Jammu and Kashmir after stripping the state of its limited autonomous status under the Indian constitution. A month later as the restrictions continued, CPJ India Correspondent Kunal Majumder traveled to Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city, to speak to local…

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Indian security personnel check the identity of a motorist during a curfew in Srinagar on August 8, 2019, as widespread restrictions on movement and a telecommunications blackout are in place after the Indian government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy. (AFP/Tauseef Mustafa)

In Kashmir, obstruction, confiscated equipment, and hand-carrying stories and photos on flash drive

“You are from the press, you are not allowed,” a local Kashmiri news editor says Indian security forces told him yesterday at one of the dozens of checkpoints set up across the region.

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Newspaper vendors collect copies of the papers in Srinagar, in July 2016. The Kashmir Times, one of the oldest papers in Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, is suffering under a nearly 10-year ban on government advertising. (AP/Mukhtar Khan)

Kashmir Times feels the strain of government advertising ban

In a Q&A with CPJ, Anuradha Bhasin, the executive editor of Kashmir Times, talks about the impact a government advertising ban on the daily has had on the way its journalists are able to report the news.

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Election officials open a seal on a voting machine at a counting centre in Srinagar in May 2019. CPJ met with journalists across India to discuss the safety challenges of covering India's elections. (AFP/Tauseef Mustafa)

Results of India’s election climate for journalist safety are in

Journalists across India are at risk of physical and digital attack in retaliation for their reporting. And during election campaigns, these dangers can increase. As the country went to the polls in recent weeks, CPJ’s India correspondent Kunal Majumder traveled to Guwahati, Imphal, Agartala, Raipur, Bijapur, and Hyderabad to present CPJ’s election safety kit to…

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Voters queue to cast their vote outside a polling station during the final phase of general election in Chandigarh, India on May 19, 2019. Journalists report online harassment and disinformation during the campaign. (REUTERS/Ajay Verma)

Journalists fighting fake news during Indian election face threats, abuse

The six-week-long voting period in India’s national and provincial elections concluded this week, with results expected on Thursday, according to news reports. For journalists, the campaign has brought a familiar deluge of online abuse.

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Voters line up at a polling station in Sukma in Chhattisgarh state on November 12, 2018. The state's newly elected state minister is setting up a committee to draft a journalist safety law. (AFP)

Chhattisgarh’s plan for journalist safety law could be template for all India

Every day for two years, freelance journalist Santosh Yadav must walk the 50 or so yards from his home to the Darbha village police station in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, to sign a register. Just one missed day could immediately land him back in prison as he awaits trial on anti-terror charges. A police commander said that…

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Copies of Indian newspapers are spread across a desk during a CPJ visit to the country in early 2018. (CPJ/Aliya Iftikhar)

Weight of legal cases and threats leave India’s journalists feeling exposed and alone

The media is in the worst state India has ever seen. That is how several journalists described the current climate in dozens of conversations with CPJ during a trip to Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi earlier this year. While the threats they outlined–political pressure, self-censorship, defamation suits, and attacks–are not a new phenomenon in India, many…

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Venus symbols are seen during an event where UN Women and rights groups launched a campaign against violence towards women as International Women's Day approaches, in Mexico City, Mexico in March 2018. CPJ has documented threats faced by women journalists across the globe. (Reuters/Henry Romero)

On International Women’s Day, CPJ looks at threats women journalists face

From imprisonment, sexual violence, cyber harassment, and even death, CPJ has documented threats faced by women journalists across the globe.

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A newspaper vendor stacks newspapers on his bicycle in Mumbai. Indian journalists say companies are using the legal notices as an attempt to silence critical reporting. (AP/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Q&A: Indian editor explains how threat of legal action is used to silence journalists

On July 5, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, and his colleagues Advait Rao Palepu and Shinzani Jain, received a notice from Thaker and co., a law firm representing Adani Power Ltd, that threatened legal action over a story published the month before.

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Indian security forces face protesters during unrest in Srinagar in September. Journalists are being caught in the crossfire during the recent unrest. (AP/Dar Yasin)

‘It’s worse this time,’ says photographer shot by police during latest Kashmir unrest

For four months, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has been under a curfew imposed after protests broke out when Burhan Wani, a commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, a pro-independence militant organization that advocates for Kashmir’s independence from India, was killed in clashes with the Indian army. Journalists have been caught in the crossfire as…

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