India’s Supreme Court ruled this week that the government could not pursue sedition charges against journalists merely for their criticism of the authorities. The International Press Institute (IPI) welcomes the decision as an important pushback against India’s increasing legal harassment of the press. In a decision published on June 3, the Supreme Court, citing previous […]

To mark World Press Freedom Day, IPI’s media partners in the South Asia Cross-border journalism project in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal have documented several press freedom violations in their countries.  These stories are published in all the five news publications – The Daily Star, The Week, Dawn, Republica and Nagarik. On the evening of […]

Across South Asia press freedom and safety of journalists have suffered a severe setback, as governments have stifled the independent media to control the public narrative. Journalists and media organizations are paying a heavy price for speaking truth to power. On the World Press Freedom Day, five publications from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal joined […]

Across the Asia-Pacific, we’re seeing in real time the tactics being adopted by populist authoritarian governments to control a news media that they can no longer command. The new strategy: a bullying domination through heavy-handed harassment, raids on pretexts of financial irregularity, attacks on news media credibility, culture war outrage and disinformation to distract and […]