{"id":14244,"date":"2021-03-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/06-03-2021\/freedom-in-the-world-2021\/"},"modified":"2021-03-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-06T00:00:00","slug":"freedom-in-the-world-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/06-03-2021\/freedom-in-the-world-2021","title":{"rendered":"Freedom in the World 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Recently, <strong>Freedom House<\/strong> has <strong>downgraded India\u2019s status<\/strong> from \u2018<strong>Free<\/strong>\u2019 to \u2018<strong>Partly Free<\/strong>\u2018 in its annual report, <strong>Freedom in the World 2021<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Report<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an <strong>annual global report<\/strong> on <strong>political rights<\/strong> and <strong>civil liberties<\/strong>, composed of numerical r<strong>atings and descriptive texts<\/strong> for each country and a select group of territories.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Coverage<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The 2021 edition covers developments in <strong>195 countries and 15 territories<\/strong> from <strong>1st January 2020 to 31st December 2020<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Methodology<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Derived in large measure from the <strong>Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/strong>, adopted by the <strong>UN General Assembly<\/strong> in <strong>1948<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The report is based on the premise that these standards apply to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Assessment<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The report <strong>assesses the real-world rights<\/strong> and <strong>freedoms enjoyed by individuals<\/strong>, <strong>rather than governments or government performance per se<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Political rights and civil liberties can be<strong> affected by both state and non-state actors<\/strong>, including insurgents and other armed groups.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Scoring Process<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It uses a<strong> two-tiered system<\/strong> consisting of <strong>scores <\/strong>and <strong>status<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The combination of the overall score awarded for <strong>10 political rights indicators<\/strong> and the overall score awarded for <strong>15 civil liberties indicators<\/strong>, after being equally weighted, determines the status of <strong>Free, Partly Free, or Not Free<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Major Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Global Status<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Less than 20 percent <\/strong>of the world\u2019s population now <strong>lives in a Free country<\/strong>, the smallest proportion since 1995.<\/li>\n<li>Pointing to a <strong>decline in global democracy <\/strong>over the last 15 years, the report said that<strong> nearly 75% <\/strong>of the world\u2019s population lived in a country that<strong> faced deterioration<\/strong> over the last year.<\/li>\n<li>The<strong> freest countries<\/strong> in the world are <strong>Finland, Norway and Sweden<\/strong> with a score of <strong>100<\/strong>, while the<strong> least free countries <\/strong>are <strong>Tibet and Syria<\/strong> with a score of <strong>1<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Indian Status<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2021, India\u2019s score is <strong>67<\/strong>, which has <strong>come down from 71<\/strong> in 2020, <strong>downgraded <\/strong>from the \u2018free\u2019 to the \u2018partly free\u2019 category.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Impact<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India\u2019s fall from the upper ranks of free nations could have a particularly damaging impact on global democratic standards.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reasons for the Decrease as per the Report<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Frequent attacks on press freedom and reportin<\/strong>g in the name of security, defamation, sedition and contempt of court, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rising Hindu nationalist interests<\/strong> at the expense of founding values like inclusion and equal rights for all.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Less internet freedom<\/strong> and <strong>increased<\/strong> <strong>social media censorship<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Covid-19 induced lockdown<\/strong> and <strong>displacement of migrants<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Crackdown on protesters<\/strong> opposing the citizenship laws.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Formations of new laws<\/strong> prohibiting forced religious conversion through interfaith marriage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:735px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align:top; width:468.0pt\">\n<p><strong>Freedom House<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a US-based, US government-funded, non-profit non-governmental organisation that conducts<strong> research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Founded in <strong>1941<\/strong>, it was the first American organisation to champion the <strong>advancement of freedom<\/strong> globally.<\/li>\n<li>It is notable for its<strong> nonpartisan character<\/strong> and <strong>commitment to maintaining support<\/strong> for its mission among members of both major US political parties.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News Recently, Freedom House has downgraded India\u2019s status from \u2018Free\u2019 to \u2018Partly Free\u2018 in its annual report, Freedom in the World 2021. About the Report It is an annual global report on political rights and civil liberties, composed of numerical ratings and descriptive texts for each country and a select group of territories. Coverage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1651810current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}