India's Adani Group, OpIndia named alongside Trump on RSF's 2026 press freedom blacklist

India's right-wing website OpIndia and the Adani Group have been named in Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2026 Press Freedom Predators List, which identifies individuals, organisations and institutions accused of targeting journalists and media outlets.

Published on Monday to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on November 2, the list profiles 33 "press freedom predators" responsible for attacks on journalists and media organisations in 2026.

According to Maktoob Media, the Press Freedom Predators List is a counterpart to RSF's annual World Press Freedom Index. It categorises the predators into five groups — political, security, economic, legal and social — based on the indicators used in the index.

US President Donald Trump, who narrowly missed inclusion last year, has made the 2026 list following what RSF described as an appalling record of attacks on the press in less than two years of his second term.

Other figures and institutions on the list include Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the Israeli Armed Forces.

The Adani Group, headed by Gautam Adani, India's richest man and an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been included in the legal category, which identifies those accused of subjecting journalists to judicial harassment.

According to RSF, the conglomerate and its subsidiaries have filed around 10 legal cases against more than 15 critical journalists and media outlets since 2017.

"These cases form part of a systematic use of gag suits, combining civil and criminal defamation lawsuits, to silence independent journalism," the RSF profile said.

India ranks 157th among 180 countries in RSF's annual World Press Freedom Index.

OpIndia has been placed in the social category for allegedly spreading conspiracy theories and conducting smear campaigns against independent journalists.

"Notorious for its repeated attacks on independent journalism, OpIndia is a website launched in 2014 and closely aligned with the Hindu supremacist ideology of Hindutva," RSF said in its profile.

The watchdog said the website played a central role in the widespread trend of discrediting reliable news media in India, presenting its content as part of a campaign against an alleged "liberal media cartel".

According to RSF, OpIndia mobilises networks of online trolls to amplify narratives targeting journalists and media outlets critical of the government. It regularly accuses them of being "propagandists" working for foreign powers, belonging to a "Soros ecosystem" — referring to US billionaire philanthropist George Soros — or being part of an "anti-India lobby".

"RSF makes nothing up — each predator has their own profile, presented as a sort of hall of shame, that shows their background, rhetoric and weapon of choice. Identifying press freedom predators, exposing their methods and documenting their abuses means refusing to let their attacks become normalised," RSF Director-General Thibaut Bruttin said.

Meanwhile, Alphabet, which owns Google and YouTube, and Meta, which operates Facebook, Instagram and Threads, have been included in the economic category.

RSF said the companies' dominance of the online information space is undermining the financial viability of media organisations.