Though India was ranked at 95th
position last year, the international watchdog said it has started
evaluating the positions through a different formula beginning this year
and hence this cannot be compared to last year's ranking.
However, the last year's rank of 95 would be 96 if it is calculated
using the new methodology which implies there was a "slight improvement"
in the index.
This year, India has a score of 36 out of 100 on a
scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) which is a result of
an average of 10 studies including World Bank's Country Performance and
Institutional Assessment and Global Insight Country Risk Ratings.
India
was ranked 72 among 180 countries for the first time in 2007 and since
then the country's rankings have been showing a decline. While India was
placed at 87 in 2010, the position was 95 in 2011.
This year,
India is ranked below neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka (79) and China (80),
while Afghanistan, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh fared much worse
than India when it came to corruption in public sector undertakings.
Denmark
is placed at the top spot with a score of 90 while Finland and New
Zealand follow very closely. Countries that occupy the bottom ranks in
the index are Myanmar, Sudan Afghanistan, Somalia and North Korea.
Not all new countries are really new. Some are born almost fully formed and others have to start from nothing. South Sudan is the most extreme example of that.
An examination
of more than a dozen key indicators in the 31 nations founded or
reconstituted since 1990 shows just how steep a climb South Sudan faces.
The above graphic shows the progress made by new countries using 6 key
indicators (GDP per capita, life expectancy, under 5 mortality, press
freedom, corruption perception, and debt as percentage of GDP).
·Due to shared history, commonality of issues and
challenges and geopolitical reasons India has been a strong votary and
architect of solidarity and cooperation among Afro-Asian nations. From Bandung
to hey days of Non-alignment and pinnacle of South-South Cooperation India has
always stood up for a closer relationship and collective approach among the
countries of the region on every possible sphere.
KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make fugitive warlord Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest, set a precedent for international justice and to save child soldiers.
This graphic provides a history of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in which Joseph Kony is the leader.
The series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa has become known as the "Arab Spring", and sometimes as the "Arab Spring and Winter", "Arab Awakening" or "Arab Uprisings" even though not all the participants in the protests are Arab.
To date, there have been revolutions in Tunisiaand Egypt; a civil war in Libya resulting in the fall of its government; civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen, the latter resulting in the resignation of the Yemeni prime minister; major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan,
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is Africa's second largest country and covers an area equal to about 70 per cent of India's, is on the edge of another civil war.
defeated candidate in the presidential election, refuses to accept the result announced by the country's independent electoral commission.
The election, only the second democratic one in the country's history, was dogged by problems and lasted three days instead of one. The transport infrastructure is very poor, and bad weather also prevented United Nations aircraft from carrying ballot papers to remote regions. After the polls closed, the count was delayed by staff shortages; in addition, bags of ballot papers were often so overfilled that they split in transit.
The 71 million-population remembers only too well the 1998-2003 war, in which over five million died and ethnic tensions were severely exacerbated as other countries and international corporations manipulated warring groups for access to mineral resources and tropical hardwoods.
In addition to oil and diamonds, the DRC has 70 per cent of the world's coltan, an essential ore for electronic goods.
If civil war breaks out again, it is unlikely that the international community will be able to do anything significant.
The year 2011 has special salience on account of the fact that we are all Members of the United Nations Security Council.
The visit of an IBSA delegation to Damascus in August this year and their interaction with the Syrian leadership demonstrated the political role which IBSA can usefully play
As expected, Morocco's moderate Islamist group, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) headed by Abdelilah Benkirane, has emerged on top in the 395-seat lower chamber
The new constitution, approved by national referendum in July, requires King Mohammed VI to name the leader of the winning party as Prime Minister — instead of nominating anyone he pleased.
Mr. Benkirane becomes the second moderate Islamist leader to win an election since the start of the pro-democracy uprisings in West Asia and North Africa, the first being Rachid Ghannouchi, whose An-Nahda party won in Tunisia a month ago.
The vibrant Tunisian election saw 90 per cent turnout in some areas while the Moroccan poll took place amid widespread cynicism and allegations of fraud.
Subsequent concessions such as the transfer of many powers to the prime minister have failed to inspire many voters. Furthermore, the monarch retains control of foreign policy, security, and religion. Mr. Benkirane, for his part, will face economic problems
despite constitutional recognition of civic and social equality to supplement political equality, women continue to suffer subjugation and discrimination in a very traditional society.
Amid fresh warnings of climate-related disasters in the future, delegates from about 190 countries were gathering in Durban for a two-week conference beginning on Monday. They hope to break deadlocks on how to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
Hopes were scrapped for an overall treaty governing global carbon emissions after the collapse of talks at a climate summit in Copenhagen two years ago.
The “big bang” approach has been replaced by incremental efforts to build new institutions to help shift the global economy from carbon-intensive energy generation, industries and transportation to more climate-friendly technologies.
But an underlying division between rich and poor countries on the future of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol has stymied the negotiators.
