STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Bangladesh has slipped down three places to 152nd on the World Press Freedom Index this year, losing some of last year’s gains.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF), or Reporters Without Borders, published the index yesterday, putting Bangladesh’s score at 33.05.

Last year, Bangladesh’s score increased to 33.71 from 27.64 a year earlier. The jump helped Bangladesh climb an unprecedented 16 places in last year’s index.

The index is based on a score ranging from zero to 100 that is assigned to each country or territory, with 100 being the best possible score, or the highest possible level of press freedom, and zero the worst.

This score is calculated on the basis of a tally of abuses against media and journalists in connection with their work and a qualitative analysis of the situation in each country.

Depending on their scores, countries are classified in a range between “good” and “very serious”.

Bangladesh is classified as “very serious”, a category for countries with a score between zero and 40.

To determine a nation’s press freedom ranking, its In

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