New Delhi, June 25: The Editors Guild of India on Monday urged Jammu and Kashmir Governor N. N. Vohra to take action against BJP legislator Choudhary Lal Singh over his "barely veiled threat of violence" against journalists of the Valley.

In a statement, the guild also urged the Tamil Nadu government to adhere to recommendation of TRAI that bar government from owning a television channel distribution company, saying its attention has been drawn to recent instances of how several TV channels in the state have been arbitrarily taken off the air for periods ranging between a couple of hours to a few days. 

Referring to Lal Singh's remarks, it said the BJP should reprimand its MLA, take suitable disciplinary action and ask him to withdraw the offending remarks after offering an apology. 

"The Editors Guild of India condemns the despicable manner in which a barely veiled threat of violence has been issued against journalists by Lal Singh, an MLA belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party and a former minister in the Jammu and Kashmir government," the statement said. 

Far from condemning the recent assassination of senior journalist Shujaat Bhukhari, Lal Singh, in a media briefing, warned all journalists in Jammu and Kashmir to "draw a line" unless they wished to be targeted like the slain editor of Rising Kashmir, it said. 

"Such a warning not only betrays Singh's deep disregard for the role of the free press in a democracy, it also amounts to encouraging physical attacks against journalists in the sensitive state and elsewhere in the country."

On Tamil Nadu, the Guild said it is appalled that an FIR has been registered by the state police against a reporter and the management of Puthiya Thalaimurai, a Tamil news channel. "All that the news channel did was to host a roundtable discussion on the protests in Tamil Nadu. The FIR was slapped even before the programme was aired."

"In the absence of a convincing explanation, this seems a shocking attempt to muzzle dissenting views and intimidate the media," the Guild said. 

It said other affected television channels have also complained that such blackouts happen after they telecast programmes that were not liked by the Tamil Nadu government, which controls the television channel content distribution agency, Arasu Cable. 

It said the state government has assured the media that it has no plans to black out television channels but dangers to a free and unhindered distribution of television content will continue to lurk as long as the state government controls a channel distribution company accounting for a market share of over 60 percent. "This also has the dangerous potential of undermining the functioning of a free media."

The Guild urged the government to take necessary steps to ensure that proper regulation is enforced so that no unfair or uncompetitive steps are taken by television channel distribution companies. 

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New Delhi (PTI): India's ranking has dropped by five points to 85 this year in a global passport index, topped by Singapore for the second consecutive year.

The data draws from Henley Passport Index released by citizenship advisory firm Henley & Partners on Wednesday.

"With historical data spanning 19 years, the Henley Passport Index is the only one of its kind based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA). The index includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations," according to its website.

The index is considered the standard reference tool for global citizens and sovereign states when assessing where a passport ranks on the global mobility spectrum, it said.

As per the index for 2025, India stands at 85th while the ranking of Pakistan and Bangladesh stood at 103rd (101st in 2024) and 100th (97th in 2024), respectively.

India's ranking in the Henley Passport Index for 2024 was 80th globally.

According to a data chart available on the firm's website, for the range of years from 2006-2025, India's rank was the lowest at 90th in 2021, while its best score was in 2006 when the country was ranked 71st.

For the US, the ranking for 2025 was 9th, down from 7th in 2024, while China's ranking rose to 60th from 62nd in 2024.

Japan's ranking stood at 2nd this year, while it had the top slot from 2018-2023. In 2024, both Japan and Singapore shared the top rank.

According to a statement issued by the firm, only 22 of the world's 199 passports have fallen down the Henley Passport Index ranking over the past decade.

"Surprisingly, the US is the second-biggest faller between 2015 and 2025 after Venezuela, plummeting seven places from 2nd to its current 9th position. Vanuatu is the third-biggest faller, losing six places from 48th to 54th position, followed by the British passport, which was top of the index in 2015 but now sits in 5th place. Completing the top 5 losers list is Canada, which dropped three ranks over the past decade from 4th to its current 7th place," the statement said.

In contrast, China is among the biggest climbers over the past decade, ascending from 94th place in 2015 to 60th in 2025, with its visa-free score increasing by 40 destinations in that time, it said.

The US nationals currently constitute the single largest cohort of applicants for alternative residence and citizenship, accounting for a staggering 21 per cent of all investment migration programme applications received by Henley & Partners in 2024, the statement said.

The firm has more American clients than the next four biggest nationalities -- Turkish, Filipino, Indian and Brits -- combined, CEO Juerg Steffen was quoted as saying in the statement.

"Faced with unprecedented volatility, investors and wealthy families are adopting a strategy of geopolitical arbitrage to acquire additional residence and/or citizenship options to hedge against jurisdictional risk and leverage the differences in legal, economic, political and social conditions across countries to optimise their personal, financial and lifestyle outcomes," he said.