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News For Aspirants

India improves talent competitiveness

India has moved up on a global index of talent competitiveness to the 81st position, but remains a laggard among the BRICS nations, an annual study showed while warning that the country faces “serious risk of worsening brain drain”. While Switzerland continues to top the list released every year on the first day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, India has improved its position from 92nd last year. India was at the 89th place in 2016 on the index that measures how countries grow, attract and retain talent.

What

1. India’s ranking was the worst among the five BRICS countries in 2017as well when China was ranked 54th, Russian Federation was placed at 56th, followed by South Africa (67) and Brazil (81). China has moved up to 43rd now, Russia to 53rd, South Africa to 63rd and Brazil to 73rd position.
2. As per the study released by Adecco, Insead and Tata Communications, the developed, high-income countries are still the global talent champions while Zurich, Stockholm and Oslo take the top spots in the cities’ ranking.
3. Among the countries, Switzerland is followed by Singapore and the US. European countries dominate the top ranks, with 15 out of the top 25 places.
4. The report said that although in recent years we have witnessed a cooling off in the growth of emerging markets, the BRICS cannot be ignored in the global talent race and it is China (43rd) that leads the pack.
5. India (81st) is the laggard of this group. Formal Education (67th) and Lifelong Learning (37th) are keeping pace — and thus the pool of Global Knowledge Skills (63rd) is solid compared with other emerging markets.
6. Where the country has plenty of room for improvement is in minimising brain drainwhile achieving a brain gain by luring back some of its talented diaspora members (it ranks 98th in the Attract pillar) and in retaining its own talent (99th in Retain) — particularly in the context of high emigration rates of high-skilled people (India is at serious risk of worsening its brain drain despite the connection with the diasporas working in the information technology sector).

News For Aspirants

Inclusive Development index 2018

India was 22 January 2018 ranked at the 62nd place among emerging economies on an Inclusive Development Index, much below China’s 26th position and Pakistan’s 47th. Norway remains the world’s most inclusive advanced economy, while Lithuania again tops the list of emerging economies, the World Economic Forum (WEF) said while releasing the yearly index before the start of its annual meeting, to be attended by several world leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump.

What

1. The index takes into account the “living standards, environmental sustainability and protection of future generations from further indebtedness” the WEF said.
2. It urged the leaders to urgently move to a new model of inclusive growth and development, saying reliance on GDP as a measure of economic achievement is fuelling short-termism and inequality.
3. India was ranked 60th among 79 developing economies last year, as against China’s 15th and Pakistan’s 52nd position.
4. The 2018 index, which measures progress of 103 economies on three individual pillars — growth and development; inclusion; and inter-generational equity — has been divided into two parts. The first part covers 29 advanced economies and the second 74 emerging economies.
5. The index has also classified the countries into five sub-categories in terms of the five-year trend of their overall Inclusive Development Growth score— receding, slowly receding, stable, slowly advancing and advancing. Despite its low overall score, India is among the ten emerging economies with ‘advancing’ trend. Only two advanced economies have shown ‘advancing’ trend.
6. Among advanced economies, Norway is followed by Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Denmark in the top five.
7. Small European economies dominate the top of the index, with Australia (9) the only non-European economy in the top 10. Of the G7 economies, Germany (12) ranks the highest. It is followed by Canada (17), France (18), the UK (21), the US (23), Japan (24) and Italy (27).
8. The top-five most inclusive emerging economies are Lithuania, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Latvia and Poland.
9. Performance is mixed among BRICS economies, with the Russian Federation ranking 19th, followed by China (26), Brazil (37), India (62) and South Africa (69).
10. Of the three pillars that make up the index, India ranks 72nd for inclusion, 66th for growth and developmentand 44th for inter-generational equity.
11. The neighbouring countries ranked above India include Sri Lanka (40), Bangladesh (34) and Nepal (22). The countries ranked better than India also include Mali, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ghana, Ukraine, Serbia, Philippines, Indonesia, Iran, Macedonia, Mexico, Thailand and Malaysia.
12. Although China ranks first among emerging economies in GDP per capita growth (6.8 per cent) and labour productivity growth (6.7 per cent) since 2012, its overall score is brought down by lacklustre performance on inclusion.
13. The GDP measures current production of goods and services rather than the extent to which it contributes to broad socio-economic progress as manifested in median household income, employment opportunity, economic security and quality of life.