The International Discussion Series is back (in-person)! The Bechtel International Center will be hosting 5 international journalism fellows at the center every Wednesday until May 10th. Our next talk, on May 10th, will feature Indian journalist Anuradha Bhasin, who will be discussing the state of democracy in India. Lunch will be offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. RSVP below. For more information on the speakers and discussion topics, check out the event posting here. This is a series and will take place every Wednesday at 12 PM.

Press freedom in peril: How democracy in India is being killed    

Indian democracy’s global rankings have plummeted from 65 to 108 in a span of 9 years. That is only a tip of the iceberg. In ways that are worrying for rest of the world, Narendra Modi government’s consistent attempts to erode secularism, destroy democratic institutions and brutally crush dissent are transitioning India from a liberal democracy into an authoritarian one. It is important to understand how press freedom in India is being throttled to launch the final offensive on democracy.

Speaker Profile 

Anuradha Bhasin has been a journalist for over three decades and is a JSK Fellow 2023 at Stanford University.

She is the executive editor of Kashmir Times, Jammu and Kashmir’s oldest English daily and author of ‘A Dismantled State: The untold story of Kashmir after 370’ published in 2022. Her massive body of work on the Kashmir conflict, human rights and politics includes newspaper reports and articles that have appeared in national and international publications. She has also written small and monograph-length research projects and contributed chapters to anthologies. She was a Commonwealth Fellow 2016.