A senior US official recently praised India’s press freedom and the role that journalists play in promoting democracy in the most populous country on earth.
US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu said that “there is nothing that’s kept secret there. You have India as a democracy in part because you have a free press that really works.”
“I know the media market is changing. But I have such respect for the freedom of the press in India. There is nothing that’s kept secret there. You have India as a democracy in part because you have a free press that really works,” Lu said in Washington.
“I can remember going into MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) once and seeing a senior person with files stacked up to the ceiling because he was processing a Right For Information request. And he was complaining bitterly about having to do this and I could only laugh because we have to do the same thing in our bureaucracy where if someone asks for a document, I have to spend several days finding the document for them because that’s what democracy does,” he pointed.
Lu emphasised the importance of journalists and the work they perform to uphold democracy in India. India now has 142.86 crore people, making it the most populated nation in the world, according to UN figures.
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