India is ranked 157th on the press freedom index.

Posted by Robinson's Podcast, Sep 23, 2026Checked Nov 2, 2026

Polygraph verdictTrue

Sources: 5 support1 context
Said: 1 time·
Confidence: 93%

Robinson's PodcastSep 23, 2026

India's 2026 rank of 157th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index is confirmed by the RSF country page and multiple tier1 wire reports, and it was the current ranking on 2026-09-23. The claimant's spoken '154th' is not supported, but the extracted claim's 157th figure is correct.

This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.

What was said

… But once totalitarianism is in power, it doesn't it doesn't as much it doesn't need to be so self-justifying, so it can threaten more. Alternative for Deutschland is still very much a movement that is not yet in power. India Modi's India is a better case in point, where, you know, they're 154th on the democracy on the on the press freedom, uh, 157 ranking, just about Belarus and Russia, clearly authoritarian states, uh yet they yet the world still treats them as a democracy. I think because the standards for other country other countries with majority non-white populations to be democracies are so low, that that's why India is still …

Robinson's Podcast · Sep 23, 2026· from the transcriptPost →

What we found

Supports. The RSF country page lists India's 2026 Index rank as 157/180 with a score of 31.96, down from 151 in 2025.[3]

Supports. AP reports that India ranks 157th out of 180 countries in the RSF press freedom index, down from 133rd a decade ago.[1]

Supports. Reuters reports India fell to 157th out of 180 countries in 2026, after ranking 122nd in 2010.[2]

Supports. Scroll and The Wire both report that RSF's 2026 index, released April 30, placed India 157th out of 180 countries.[4][5]

Context. The ranking was published April 30, 2026, and later coverage through October still cites 157th, so no change had occurred by the claim date.[1][6]

Context. The claimant's passage says '154th' before '157 ranking'; the extracted claim uses 157, which matches every source, so the extraction is faithful to the 157 figure.