India’s rank marginally improves in peace index

Why it is in news?
  • India’s rank has marginally improved in global peacefulness, at a time when there is an overall decline of global peace owing to escalation of violence in West Asia and North Africa.
The Global Peace Index (GPI)
  • The Global Peace Index (GPI) is released by Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
  • The IEP, world’s leading think tank that develops metrics to analyse peace and quantify its economic value, released the 12th edition of the GPI, or measure of global peacefulness.
  • The Index was first launched in May 2007, with subsequent reports being released annually.
  • The GPI gauges global peace using three broad themes:
  • the level of societal safety and security
  • the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict
  • the degree of militarization
  • Factors are both internal such as levels of violence and crime within the country and external such as military expenditure and wars.
Facts
  • India’s GPI rank was 137 out of 163 countries in 2017, when the year 2016 was assessed.
  • India’s rank moved up to 136 for 2017. This is in line with the performance of some of the South Asian countries.
  • Nepal’s rank moved up from 93 to 84, while Sri Lanka’s position moved up too, from position 80 to 67.
  • Pakistan’s rank moved from 152 to 151.
  • South Asia experienced the largest regional improvement in peacefulness, the report noted.
  • However, the best performer of South Asia, Bhutan, slipped from 13th to 19th position, while Bangladesh’ peace index deteriorated sharply. Bangladesh moved from 84th to 93rd position.
  • Peace continues to record a gradual, sustained fall across the world, the report noted.
  • The results of the 2018 GPI find that the global level of peace has deteriorated by 0.27% last year, marking the fourth successive year of deteriorations.
  • Syria remained the least peaceful country in the world, a position that it had held for the past five years.
  • Iceland continues to remain the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008.
Posted by Jawwad Kazi on 7th Jun 2018
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