'India Now An Electoral Autocracy': Swedish Firm V-Dem Institute

V-Dem Institute, an independent research organisation based in Sweden, has declared India an “electoral autocracy”, downgrading the world’s largest democracy from the 2019 ranking. New ranking suggests India is as autocratic as Pakistan when it comes to censorship & worse than Bangladesh & Nepal. In 2019, India was counted among the 10 autocratising countries. The report was released on March 10 in the presence of Sweden’s deputy foreign minister Robert Rydberg. Billing 2020 as another year of decline for liberal democracy, the new report stated that “a major change is that the world’s largest democracy turned into an electoral autocracy: India with 1.37 billion people”. The unkindest cut for the Narendra Modi government was the comparison with Pakistan. Watch the video to know more. “India is, in this aspect (censorship), now as autocratic as is Pakistan, and worse than both its neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal,” the report said. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted saying, “India is no longer a democratic country”. Watch the video to know more.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 12, 2021 03:25 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).