New Delhi, April 25: India dropped down to 138th rank, two points below the previous year, in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by global watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday. The report blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “troll army” for sharing and amplifying hate speeches targeting journalists on social networks. “In India (down from 136 ranking in 2017), hate speech targeting journalists is shared and amplified on social networks, often by troll armies in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pay,” it stated. “With Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of ‘anti-national’ thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media and journalists are increasingly the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals,” the report said. It mentioned that at least three of the journalists, including Gauri Lankesh murdered in 2017, were targeted in connection with their work. “Prosecutions are also used to gag journalists who are overly critical of the government, with some prosecutors invoking Section 124a of the penal code, under which ‘sedition’ is punishable by life imprisonment,” it stated. The report said that although “no journalist has so far been convicted of sedition, but the threat encourages self-censorship”. It also said “Kashmiri journalists were often the targets of violence by soldiers acting with the central government’s tacit consent”.