Foreign Affairs has this piece on several problems India is facing, including a lapdog press: "Restrictions have also been placed on civil rights; libel and defamation laws have become unsettlingly wide. Indeed, national newspapers and magazines, far from serving as a powerful fourth estate, are now commonly viewed as subservient to members of the government." Further, a governmental official floated the idea of governmental licensing of members of the media: "the minister of information and broadcasting recently put forward the idea that journalism, like law or medicine, should require an exam to assess competency. This would be an especially foreboding precedent: since Indira Gandhi evoked emergency laws in 1974, the media has generally been free to cast a critical eye on the government."
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
