India has moved up to the 136th position on the Global Peace Index: Report

• Indian has moved up 6 positions from 142, since 2012, on the Global Peace Index.
  
• Increased law enforcement has resulted in this improved score.
  
• India still behind most of its neighbouring countries.
  

The international think-tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) has recently released the 2018 edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI). India ranked 136th out of 163 on this index which has been topped by Iceland since 2008. India has moved up six positions science 2012 on this index.

The index covers 99.7% of the world’s population and 163 countries by using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources and measures the state of peace in the country by the use of three thematic domains:

• The level of societal safety and security
• The extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict
• The degree of militarisation
  

Besides Iceland, New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, Denmark, Canada, Czech Republic, Singapore, Japan and Ireland are the countries which currently hold the top ten positions on the index, and hence are the most peaceful countries to live in.

This positive trend in India is mainly due to the reduction of violent crimes in the country thanks to increased law enforcement, says a report. The GPI report also said that in India the government’s efforts to handle violent crimes have paid off, and falling military expenditure, particularly the ones in weapons imports, has resulted in a slight improvement in India's score.

Surprisingly (not), the GPI report claimed that - “the concentration of power in the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi led to a deterioration in India’s score for political instability, and the country’s scores on the Political Terror Scale and internal conflicts fought, at 4 and 4.7 respectively, remain elevated.”

Among its neighbours, India is only above Pakistan (151) and Afghanistan (162) on the index, whereas Bangladesh (93), Nepal (84), Sri Lanka (67) and Bhutan (19) come higher up.

The report also added that the level of peace globally has deteriorated by 0.27% in the last year, marking 2017 the fourth successive year of deteriorations. Ninety two countries deteriorated, while 71 countries improved in 2017.

The 2018 GPI also acknowledges that the tensions, conflicts and crises that emerged in the world over the past decade still remain unresolved, especially in the Middle East which has resulted in this gradual and sustained fall in global peace.

Ongoing conflicts in regions of Syria, Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan in the past decade have contributed towards a significant rise in battlefield deaths, a surging refugee population and an increase in terrorism, the report added. As of now, these countries are at the bottom of the list with Syria coming in last.