Two journalists have been shot dead in eastern India in what are the latest in a string of killings of media personnel in the country, officials and news reports said today.

The two men were killed in separate incidents over the past two days.

Veteran journalist Rajdeo Ranjan, 42, was killed in Bihar's Siwan district Friday night when unidentified men on a motorcycle shot at him, local police officer Saurabh Kumar Sah said.

Ranjan, who was a bureau chief for national Hindi daily Hindustan and had been writing articles on criminals in the area, was hit in the head and neck while also riding a motorbike, Sah said.

Four people had been detained for questioning in connection with the murder.

In a separate incident in neighbouring Jharkhand state's Chhatra district, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a 35-year-old local television reporter, was gunned down by unidentified people on Thursday night, NDTV news channel reported citing police information.

According to a 2015 report by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, India is the world's sixth most dangerous country for journalists.

Nine journalists were killed in India in 2015, at least five of them during the course of their work, the report said.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley condemned the murders of the two journalists in a post on Twitter.

He said there would be an independent investigation and the guilty would be punished.

- dpa