President of the Girls’s Press Membership, Sujata Raghavan, and Dr Waiel Awwad throughout a panel dialogue on “Safeguarding Press Freedom” on the Indian Girls’s Press Corps (IWPC), in New Delhi on Saturday, Could 2, 2026.
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ANI
A number of outstanding journalists, representing totally different organisations, have expressed concern over the current standing of media professionals elsewhere and press freedom.
Press Affiliation president C Okay Naik, Editors Guild of India basic secretary Raghavan Srinivasan and International Correspondents Membership of South Asia (FCC) president Waiel Awwad spoke at a panel dialogue organised by the Indian Girls’s Press Corps (IWPC) on the event of World Press Freedom Day, in accordance with a launch issued by the IWPC on Sunday.
The topic of the dialogue was “Safeguarding Press Freedom Amidst International Upheaval”.
India’s deteriorating press freedom
The occasion was held within the backdrop of a latest report that India has slipped to the 157th place amongst 180 nations within the 2026 World Press Freedom Index launched by Reporters With out Borders, marking a six-place drop from the earlier 12 months, the discharge mentioned.
Awwad, who can be the president of the Worldwide Affiliation of Press Golf equipment (IAPCs), warned that assaults on journalists have moved from incidental to deliberate.
“That is a part of a scientific try and cease the reality from being instructed,” he mentioned, stressing the pressing want for stronger worldwide mechanisms to guard reporters on the bottom.
He highlighted latest “focused” killing of journalists in Gaza.
A urgent concern
Srinivasan identified to deep structural failures throughout the business and mentioned: “Many troubling traits within the media have grow to be normalised, from ownership-driven bias to editorial strain.”
Expressing concern {that a} new technology could not absolutely grasp the occupation’s core values, he highlighted the financial disaster dealing with conventional media, noting that declining audiences and readership straight affect monetary viability and editorial independence.
A name for solidarity
Naik turned the highlight inward on a fractured occupation.
“We now have grow to be our personal enemy,” he mentioned, citing the absence of coordinated resistance and the weak spot of press our bodies as important vulnerabilities at a time when journalists want solidarity probably the most.
In conclusion, IWPC president Sujata Raghavan mentioned, “We’re right here to collectively mirror, converse up and construct a extra strong setting for journalism, which stays central to the democratic ethos.”
Printed on Could 3, 2026
