Current Affairs - Survey/Index

On March 1, 2023, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) released data indicating that India's unemployment rate had risen from 7.14% in the previous month to 7.45% in February.

On 27 June 2022, Ecowrap – a State Bank of India (SBI) research report, revealed that Poverty Ratio has declined in India.

Findings

• All India poverty ratio has declined modestly to 17.9% in 2020-21 from 21.9% in 2011-12.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has released its annual ranking of the world's most livable cities, and the Global Liveability Index for 2022.

• This year’s edition of EIU’s Global Liveability Ranking finds that Vienna, capital city of Austria is the most liveable city in the world, whereas Damascus, capital city of Syria is the least livable out of 173 countries surveyed.

India jumped one position to 7th among the top recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the last calendar year (2021) despite FDI inflows into the country declining, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

• In its latest World Investment Report, UNCTAD said FDI inflows into India declined to $45 billion in 2021 from $64 billion in the preceding year.

In the biennial Environment Performance Index-2022, an international ranking system that measures environmental health and sustainability of countries, India came at the bottom (180th) out of 180 countries.

• With a paltry score of 18.9, India’s 180th ranking comes after Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Myanmar — the bottom five together make up the poorest performing countries for environmental health.

India has been ranked at the 54th place in a global Travel and Tourism Development Index 2021, down from 46th in 2019, but still remained on the top within South Asia.

• Japan has topped the global charts, followed by the US, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austraila, UK, Singapore and Italy in the top ten.

India’s ranking in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index has fallen to 150 out of 180 countries, according to the latest report released by the global media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

• In last year’s report, India was ranked 142.

India has slipped to 82nd position in 2021, five places down from 77th rank last year, in a global list that measures business bribery risks.

• According to this year’s data, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Eritrea pose the highest commercial bribery risk, while Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand present the lowest.