'Media restrictions hurt our economy': Editors Guild calls PM Modi's lack of open press conferences regrettable

New Delhi: Amid Indian officials and foreign media facing-off during the Prime Minister's recent tour, the Editors Guild of India on Sunday it is "regrettable" that Narendra Modi has not addressed a single press conference while in power and "same intolerance" to being questioned is increasingly being manifested at all levels of governments at the centre and state level.

The remarks came as the Editors Guild expressed concern over the "embarrassing stand-offs" between Indian government officials and journalists of the Netherlands and Norway during the Prime Minister's recent visit to the two countries.

A controversy erupted after Oslo-based journalist Helle Lyng posted on X about Modi not addressing the media during his Norway visit.

The face-off with the European media was triggered by the Prime Minister’s refusal to take questions from local journalists after a press briefing, the Editors Guild said while recalling that Norway and the Netherlands are number 1 and 2 in the World Press Freedom Index, respectively.

India, on the other hand, despite the manifest cultural differences with the Western world as pointed out by an angry Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, in response to the Norwegian journalist’s question, is at an abysmal 157 out of 180 countries, it said.

"It may well be that Western journalists are insufficiently aware of India’s past. Or even of the significant role that Indian media played in building awareness about the values underpinning India’s freedom movement. However, they were right about the need for journalists to ask questions in a democracy," the statement said.

"It is a regrettable fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed a single open press conference during his more than a decade in power. The same intolerance to being questioned is increasingly being manifested at all levels of government, both at the Central and State levels. Media restrictions hurt our economy and our society," it said.

The Editors Guild said one may differ about methodology or implicit bias in such rankings, but India’s "abysmal position" in various press freedom rankings is a "matter of grave concern and reflective of an increasingly constrained space" for the media to effectively discharge its role in a democracy.

It called on the government to refrain from treating the media as an adversary merely for doing what it is supposed to do -- hold those in power accountable.