Current Affairs March 2018 - Reports
1 - World Military rank topped by USA
Global Fire Power Index 2017 ranked USA at the first position and India at 4th position for its military strength. Russia was ranked the second and China’s military strength was ranked the third. According to the report, India has more than 13,62,500 active militants whereas China has 37,12,500 active militants.
Global Fire Power Index 2017 also reported that India's defence budget is USD 51 billion as against China's USD161.7 billion and Pakistan's USD7 billion which was ranked 13th in the index. Global Fire Power Index relies on 50 factors to come to a conclusion.
2 - Jeff Bezos tops Forbes Billionaires List 2018
According to Forbes Billionaires List 2018, Amazon's Jeff Bezos has topped the list with a net worth of $112 billion, becoming the only person to appear in the Forbes list with a 12-figure fortune. Bill Gates was second in the list with a fortune of $90 billion.
The others in the top five are Warren Buffet ($84 billion), Bernard Arnault and family ($72 billion), and Facebook founder-CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($71 billion) respectively. India's Mukesh Ambani was 19th on the list with $40.1 billion net-worth.
3 - Delhi and Mumbai ranked as World’s Best Airport
According to the Airports Council International (ACI) ASQ 2017 rankings, Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) of Delhi and Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport were ranked as the world’s best airports.
The Airports Council International (ACI) had conducted a worldwide programme in which passengers were surveyed across airports for their feedback on 34 key performance indicators. ACI is a trade association of 1,953 airports in 176 countries.
4 - Finland tops World Happiness Index 2018
According to the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s (SDSN) 2018 World Happiness Report, Finland is the world’s happiest country. India was ranked 133 out of 156 nations.
The top 10 nations included Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. The USA was 18th while UK was 19th. The African countries - Tanzania (153rd), South Sudan (154th), Central African Republic (155th) and Burundi (156th) occupied the bottom positions in the happiness index.
5 - Pune ranked as the top city in terms of good governance
According to the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) report released by the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, a Bengaluru-based non-profit organization, Pune has been ranked as the best city in terms of good governance. Pune scored 5.1 points out of 10.
Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar and Surat were the other cities in the top five. Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Patna and Chennai constituted the bottom five cities. Bengaluru was ranked last in the list.
6 - India ranks 78th on WEF Energy Transition Index
According to the "Fostering Effective Energy Transition" report published by the World Economic Forum, India has been ranked at 78th among 114 countries on the Energy Transition Index. The index was topped by Sweden. Brazil stood at the 38th place, Russia at 70th and China at 76th place.
Other countries on the top 10 include Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, Austria, France and Iceland. India improved its performance score by 5.6% points between 2013 and 2018.
7 - Andhra Pradesh stands at 51st position in Global Multidimensional Poverty Index
According to Andhra Pradesh Multidimensional Poverty (MPI) Index Report 2017, the State secured an Index value of 0.0825 which is equivalent to 51st rank globally. The value ranges from 0 to 1; 0 being the best and 1 being the worst.
India with an Index value of 0.1911 is at the 66th position. The Vision Management Unit (VMU) of the Planning Department in collaboration conducted the study with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of the University of Oxford.
8 - Worldwide Cost of Living Report 2018
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Worldwide Cost of Living 2018 survey, Singapore has been dubbed the world's most expensive city to live in for the fifth year running. The cheapest city this year was found to be Damascus in Syria.
Paris, Zurich, Hongkong, Oslo, geneva, Seoul, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv and Sydeny are the cities in the top ten most expensive cities. Caracas, Almaty, Lagos, Bangalore, Karachi, Algiers, Chennai, Bucharest and New Delhi are the other cities in the top ten cheapest cities.
9 - Skytrax survey rated Singapore Airport as world's best airport for 2018
Skytrax survey rated Singapore Changi Airport as world's best airport for the sixth consecutive year. The Incheon International Airport in South Korea and Haneda Airport in Japan secured second and third place in the list. India’s Mumbai airport was placed at 63rd position and the airports of Bangalore and Delhi were placed at 64th and 66th place respectively.
Tokyo Haneda was named as world's cleanest airport whereas Rome's Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport was named as most improved airport. Incheon Airport was rated as world's best airport for "staff service" while London Heathrow's T2 was rated as "best terminal.
10 - Brazzaville declaration signed to protect world’s largest tropical peatland
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Republic of Congo and Indonesia jointly signed the Brazzaville declaration. The declaration will help to protect the Cuvette Centrale region in the Congo Basin, the world’s largest tropical peatlands, from unregulated land use and prevent its drainage and degradation.
The Brazzaville Declaration aims to implement coordination and cooperation between different government sectors to protect the benefits provided by peatland ecosystems. Peatlands are wetlands that contain a mixture of decomposed organic material, partially submerged in a layer of water, lacking oxygen.
11 - Independent Verification of Swachh Bharat Gramin confirms 93% usage of toilets
The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) 2017-18, conducted by an Independent Verification Agency (IVA) under the World Bank support project to the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (SBM-G), has found that 93.4% of the households in rural India who have access to a toilet use it.
The other key findings of NARSS 2017-18 are as follows −
77% of households were found to have access to toilets during the survey period
95.6% of villages which were previously declared and verified as ODF were confirmed to be ODF
70% of the villages surveyed found to have minimal litter and minimal stagnant water
