HCS Current Affairs: India's Ranking In Various Indexes 2020-II

HCS Last One Year Topic Wise Current Affairs: India's ranking in various indexes Part-II

Haryana Civil Services Exam

CURRENT AFFAIRS YEARLY 2020

Last one-year Current Affairs For HCS Exam: India's ranking in various indexes Part-II

1. The Ministry of Human Resource Development released the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for the educational institutions in the country.

• IIT Madras topped the list followed by IISc Bangalore. 
• The third place was secured by IIT Delhi. 
• As per the annual rankings, the top three universities are---IISc Bangalore, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Banaras Hindu University.
• The NIRF ranking system was launched in 2015. The first NIRF ranking was released in 2016. The NIRF ranks institutions in 10 categories namely engineering, university, management, college, medical, pharmacy, law, dental, and architecture.

2. According to the 7th edition of ‘Open Budget Survey 2019’ conducted by the International Budget Partnership (IBP), India has been ranked at 53rd position among 117 nations in terms of budget transparency and accountability with a score of 49 out of 100. 

• New Zealand has been topped the list with a score of 87
• The survey ranked the countries in 5 different categories based on their scores.[0-20: scant, 21-40: minimal, 41-60:limited, 61-80:substantial,81-100:extensive
• Some of the other large developing countries, with the exception of China, have got much higher transparency scores compared to India.
• South Africa (87), Mexico (82), and Brazil (81) are among the top six countries providing extensive information to the public for scrutiny.

3. According to the World Economic Forum(WEF)’s global Energy Transition Index (ETI) 2020, India has ranked 74th.

• Sweden has topped the ranking for the third consecutive year.
• It was followed by Switzerland and Finland.

4. India has moved down three places to 77th rank in terms of money parked by its citizens and enterprises with Swiss banks at the end of 2019, while the UK has retained its top position, as per the latest data from Switzerland’s central bank.

• India was ranked 74th in the previous year.

5. The rank of India has decreased by two places to 142nd from 140th position in the “The World Press Freedom Index 2020”.

• This decline in rank is showing an improvement in the security of Indian media as in 2019 there were no murders of journalists were recorded as against six in 2018.
• The World Press Freedom Index is compiled by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.
• The index has been topped by Norway while North Korea stood at the last rank of 180.
• Since 2002 it is published annually by RSF to rank 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists.

6. Finland is the world's happiest nation in the UN's World Happiness Report of 156 countries.

• Finland's residents enjoy a high quality of life, security, and public services, with rates of inequality and poverty among the lowest of all OECD countries.
• India ranked 144.
• Following Finland, Denmark and Switzerland ranked second and third positions respectively. 
•  Meanwhile, the countries at the bottom of this year's ranking are those afflicted by violent conflicts and extreme poverty, with Zimbabwe, South Sudan and Afghanistan classed as the world's least happy countries.

7. The 26th annual edition of Economic Freedom Index 2020 has been published which measures the level of economic freedom in 186 countries.

• The annual index measures the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations.
• Singapore overtook Hong Kong as the world's freest economy for the first time since 1995 in the latest Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom published last week.
• The Index was first published in 1995 and Hong Kong has topped the charts ever since; that is until this year.
• India (56.5) ranks in 120th position 
• India secured 28th rank among 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region & also has made improvements in its score by 1.3 points from 2019.

8. Gujarat has been ranked first in the list for domestic solar rooftop installations, throughout the country with 64 percent of domestic solar installations.

• Nearly 50,915 domestic solar rooftops have been fixed in the state of Gujarat with a capacity of 177.67 MW on 2nd March 2020.
• Maharashtra is the second state to top in the domestic solar rooftop installations list with the installation of 5,513 systems on 2nd March 2020.

9. Mangaluru International Airport, which is managed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), has been adjudged the ‘best airport by size and region’ in the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey for 2019.

• Apart from Mangaluru, two other airports managed by the AAI — Chandigarh, and Thiruvananthapuram — have also won the award under the same category.
• The airports of Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh, and Lucknow won 10 awards in four categories – best airport by size and region, best airport by the environment, and ambiance by size.
• The ASQ survey is the internationally established global benchmarking program measuring passengers’ satisfaction with the airport.
• Conducted by the Airports Council International (ACI), it recognizes airports around the world that deliver the best customer experience in the opinion of their own passengers.

10. Madhya Pradesh has bagged the first position for the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Matra Vandana Yojana. 

• Indore district has bagged the first place for better performance of the scheme. Along with this, the state has also got third place for the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Matra Vandana Saptah which was observed in the state from December 2 to December 8, 2019.
• Principal Secretary Shri Anupam Rajan has received the award in New Delhi.
• The first installment has been paid to about 13 lakh 40 thousand 224 beneficiaries, the second installment to 12 lakh 60 thousand 304, and the third installment to 8 lakh 80 thousand 517 beneficiaries.
• The main objective of the Matra Vandana Yojana is to provide incentives in the form of financial compensation to compensate for the loss of wages of working women and ensure their proper rest and nutrition.

11. India's Observer Research Foundation (ORF) has jumped more than 90 places to 27th position among 176 global think tanks.

• The 2019 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, ranked ORF among the top 30 think tanks globally.
• The list was topped by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace of US, followed by Belgium's Bruegel and French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). UK's Chatham House was ranked 6th on the list.
• Other Indian think tanks in the list include the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) at 41st rank, while Indian Council for Research on International Economic Research (ICRIER) was at 110 positions.

12. India has been ranked 40th out of 53 countries on a global intellectual property index, even as the country has shown improvement in terms of scores when it comes to the protection of IP and copyright issues.

• India was placed at 36th position among 50 countries in 2019.
• Since the release of the 2016 National IPR Policy, India has improved the speed of processing for patent and trademark applications, increased awareness of IP rights among Indian innovators and creators, and facilitated the registration and enforcement of those rights.