That doesn't match my experience. My ex-colleagues and I used to criticize the government regularly, and publicly, when I lived there, and we faced no hostility or opposition.
Altnews the left wing version of Tucker Carlson. I'd go as far as to say that if Alt-news told me there was no Earthquake in my house, my first instinct would be to find cover.
Local and politicized news in India is notoriously biased. But the direction of the bias varies from news org to news org. Somehow, American & British news orgs are notorious for giving megaphones to the worst faith actors within Indian politics.
I've found that ThePrint is the closest thing to centrist-neutral reporting in India. They are pretty open about leaning left*[1] on social issues and leaning right [2] on economic issues.
[1] The left-right division doesn't work as cleanly in India, but left for the Print means separation of church & state, live-n-let-live, individual freedoms, LGBT support, a kind of French secularism.
[2] which in an Indian context means left of Biden, but right of pre-1991 socialist India. ie. Welfare-ist, but not isolationist.
Alt News is much more similar to Rappler, a Filipino news website and fact checker whose founder (Maria Ressa) was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize after she was arrested and convicted by the Filipino ruling government for "cyberlibel" in retaliation for her journalism.
The Peace Research Institute Oslo nominated the Alt News founders (Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha) for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize after Zubair was jailed for "hurting religious sentiments" in retaliation for his journalism.
> because Indian Government recently jailed an independent fact checker for a tweet he made 4 years ago.
Are you contending the fact that a 4 year old tweet was used to suppress an Altnews? This ad-hominem attack may have basis, but the assertion that there is very filthy gross things being used to suppress doesn't seem to have been addressed.
And it seems like gross government indecency from where I stand. You're talking about ethics in journalism, but this seemingly is a case of government jailing & taking away someone's right, which seems like an act that requires a much much higher standard of conduct than antagonistic-left journalism.
You will not be treated well if you criticise the government.