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 and North Africa. Pakistan too has improved marginally, according to the Global Peace Index (GPI), 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, on Wednesday.
India’s GPI rank was 137 out of 163 countries in 2017, when the year 2016 was assessed. In 2018, when the year 2017 is assessed, India’s rank moved up to 136. This is in line with the performance of some of the South Asian countries. Nepal moved up from 93 to 84, while Sri Lanka moved up too, from position 80 to 67. Pakistan 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, has slipped from 13 to 19, while Bangladesh’ peace index deteriorated sharply. Bangladesh moved from 84 to 93.
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,” the IEP report said. 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.