Life in South Asia

                                                                                                                                        Life in South Asia

                                                        Credit : www.worldbank.org

Two important indicators of quality of life in a region are Democracy Index and Happiness Index. South Asian indexes are given below.

Democracy Index 2016*

 

Worldwide position             Score

India                     32                             7.81

Sri Lanka             66                              6.48

Bangladesh         84                              5.73

Turkey                97                                5.04

Nepal                 102                               4.86

Nigeria               109                              4.50

Pakistan           111                                 4.33

Myanmar           113                               4.20

Bhutan                104                              3.33

Afghanistan      149                               2.55

Maldives   No data

 

*The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories.

 

The index values are used to place countries within one of four types of regime:

  1. Full democracies: scores of 8 o 10
  2. Flawed democracies: score of 6 to 7.9
  3. Hybrid regimes: scores of 4 to 5.9

4 Authoritarian regimes: scores below 4

 

The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Based on their scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regime: “full democracy”; “flawed democracy”; “hybrid regime”; and “authoritarian regime”.

 

According to the Democracy Index, 76 of the 167 countries covered by the model, or 45.5% of

all countries, can be considered to be democracies. However, the number of “full democracies”

has declined from 20 in 2015 to 19 in in this year’s Democracy Index. The US, a standard-bearer of democracy for the world, has become a “flawed democracy”, as popular confidence in the functioning of public institutions has declined. The score for the US fell to 7.98 from 8.05 in 2015, causing the world’s leading economic superpower to slip below the 8.00 threshold for a “full democracy”. Of the remaining 91 countries in our index, 51 are “authoritarian” and 40 (up from 37 in 2015) are considered to be “hybrid regimes”.

 

World happiness Index 2017*

 

Ranking           Score

Pakistan            80                    5.011

Bhutan              97                     5.011

Nepal                99                    4.962

Bangladesh    110                    4.608

Sri Lanka         120                     4.440

India                 122                     4.315

Afghanistan     141                    3.794

Myanmar         114                     4.545

 

This report gives special attention to the social foundations of happiness for individuals and

nations.

 

*World Happiness Report 2017; Editors John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffery Sachs