Nevertheless, freedom of the press in India is subject to certain restrictions, such as defamation law, a lack of protection for whistleblowers, barriers to information access and constraints caused by public and government hostility to journalists.
[6] To protect the intellectual, moral, and fundamental rights of the citizens, the government has taken several countermeasures to combat circulating fake news and restricting objectionable contents across the multiple platforms.
The law of India prohibits spreading or publishing fake news through social or mass media, and could lead to imprisonment of a journalist or newspaper ban.
[16] In 1956, a private bill introduced by Feroz Gandhi called Parliamentary Proceedings became a crucial law in the history of Indian press freedom.
[17] As part of the Emergency, Indira Gandhi made complete restriction over the press, banning all domestic and international news, expelling many foreign journalists and correspondents and revoking the accreditation of over 40 Indian reporters.
[22] In 2020, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting blocked the MediaOne TV temporarily for covering a news about the "mob attacks on Muslims" in the country's capital New Delhi.
[23] The Jammu and Kashmir Police, a law enforcement and counterinsurgency agency, often interrogate journalists while some are charged and arrested over national security reportage and nominally defamatory news stories involving government.
[36] Several journalists such as Sagarika Ghose, Ravish Kumar have said that they were subjected to harassment, intimidation including death and rape threats when they were skeptical of the Bharatiya Janata Party government.
Bobby Ghosh, the editor of the Hindustan Times resigned in September 2018 shortly after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly met Shobhana Bhartia, the owner of the newspaper.
[37] The incident occurred after Ghosh opened a portal called the Hate Tracker on the newspaper, a database for tracking violent crimes motivated by race, religion and sexual orientation.
[41] Reporters Without Borders stated that journalists suffer from violence from the police, political activists, criminal groups, and corrupt local officials.
However, the INDIA alliance has defended its decision, arguing that it is necessary to protect democracy from the harmful effects of biased and hateful media coverage.
[60][61][62] Media reports in India that support the ruling party are criticized as being often one-sided and exaggerated, playing little or no role in gathering true information and providing propaganda on their platforms.
[63] While campaigning in his constituency of Varanasi during the 2024 general election, Modi tried to divinise himself in a live TV interview given to News18 by stating that he had been directly sent by God in a quote unquote 'non-biological' body to serve the country.