Norway sits at number one on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. India, as of 2026, sits at 157th — down from 151 the previous year — placing it in the ‘very serious’ category, below both Bangladesh and Pakistan. The optics of a leader from the world’s most constrained press environments refusing to engage with a journalist from the most open one could not have been scripted more pointedly.
The issue of deportation of Indian migrants staying illegally in the US took an emotionally charged turn when a C-17 Globemaster aircraft of the US Air Force landed at the Amritsar International Airport at around 10pm on February 5, 2025. The first military flight carrying 104 immigrants landed with handcuffs and chained. Of the total deportees, 31 were from Punjab, 44 from Haryana, 33 from Gujarat, two from Uttar Pradesh and one each from Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. When questioned by the Opposition in Parliament, EAM Jaishankar informed that the govt is in talks with the US for considering being ‘Humane’ while returning our people. But surely nothing seemed to have made Trump budge.
