印度媒体团体周二向最高法院提出诉讼，称印度政府的隐私法要求记者征得报道对象的同意，这等同于事前审查，并可能导致新闻编辑室关闭。这由此启动了针对该法律最受瞩目的挑战。
The Indian government's privacy law, which would require journalists to seek consent from people they write about, amounted to pre-censorship and could lead to newsrooms shutting down, media groups told the Supreme Court on Tuesday, starting the most high-profile challenge against the legislation.
这起诉讼提出之际，印度自总理纳伦德拉·莫迪2014年上任以来新闻自由不断下降的指责正甚嚣尘上。批评人士称，许多主流媒体在监督莫迪政府方面做得不够。莫迪政府否认了此类指控，并表示尊重新闻自由。
The lawsuit comes amid accusations of declining press freedom in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. Critics say many mainstream media outlets have not done enough to scrutinise Modi’s government, which has denied such allegations and says it respects press freedom.
包括亿万富翁穆克什·安巴尼和高塔姆·阿达尼旗下公司在内的21家新闻出版商对该隐私法提出质疑，认为该法将践踏调查性报道工作，并让新德里方面得以查明记者的消息来源。
A group of 21 news publishers, including companies owned by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, has challenged the privacy law, arguing it would trample upon investigative work and allow New Delhi to identify journalists' sources.
数字新闻出版商协会（DNPA）的律师马达维·戈拉迪亚·迪万对法官表示：“它正在改变新闻的全部概念。”“如果我们必须征求许可，新闻编辑室将会关闭……那样一来就是一套完整的事前审查制度。”这起诉讼是对莫迪隐私法最受瞩目的挑战。迄今为止，只有言论自由活动人士和一些较小的新闻机构对该法提出过质疑。最高法院将该案安排在下个月审理。
"It is changing the whole concept of what is news," Madhavi Goradia Divan, the lawyer for Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) told the judges. "Newsrooms will shut down if we have to ask for permission...it's then a complete regime of pre-censorship." The lawsuit is the most high-profile challenge to Modi’s privacy law. Until now, only free speech activists and a group of smaller news outlets had challenged it. The Supreme Court posted the case for next month.
新闻出版商在本月早些时候提交的一份文件中表示，媒体公司在8月与政府的一次会面中得到了保证，即该法将保护新闻自由，但该法没有像欧盟、新加坡和英国那样为记者提供书面豁免，这令人担忧。
Media companies received assurances in an August meeting with the government that the law would protect press freedom, but not having a written carve-out for journalists like in the European Union, Singapore and Britain was alarming, the news publishers said in a filing earlier this month.
出版商们要求废除该法大部分有争议的条款，这些条款将从2027年5月起生效。他们表示，该法还可能迫使出版商删除报道，并赋予政府要求出版商提供可能暴露记者消息来源的信息的权力。
The publishers are demanding that most of the law's contentious provisions, which kick in from May 2027, should be quashed. They say the law could also force publishers to erase stories and give powers to the government to demand information from publishers that could expose reporters' sources.
DNPA（印度数字新闻出版商协会）是一个曾对莫迪政府提出挑战的组织，其成员包括安巴尼旗下的Network18、阿达尼旗下的NDTV，以及其他知名媒体集团，如《印度快报》和Times Internet（属于《印度时报》集团，该集团出版印度发行量最大的英语日报）。
DNPA, the group, which has challenged Modi's government, counts as members Ambani's Network18, Adani's NDTV, and other marquee media groups, including the Indian Express and Times Internet, which is part of the Times of India group, publisher of India's largest-selling English-language daily.
迪万在听证会上表示，该法律的早期版本曾将记者排除在外，但最终版本并未如此。
Divan said during the hearing that earlier versions of the law excluded journalists, but the final one did not.