Reports and Indices Current Affairs MCQs

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India is ranked at 47th position in Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the year 2022.
The index includes sectors like air transport, road freight cover and government regulations. The STRI indices takes into consideration the government policies in several sectors that define the ease of trading in those sectors and industries. Based on these factors, STRI indices assign value to countries between zero and one.

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The Methane Global Tracker report is the annual report released by the International Energy Agency.
According to the latest report, fossil fuel companies released 120 million metric tonnes of methane into the atmosphere last year. The report found that no effort has been taken by the fossil fuel companies to bring down the emissions.

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The report titled “Global Bottled Water Industry: A Review of Impacts and Trends” was released recently ahead of the United Nations 2023 Water Conference.
The Conference is to be hosted in New York, USA. The report revealed that the bottled water industry is masking the existing issue of the lack of reliable drinking water for all.

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The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems report was released recently by the Food and Agricultural Organisation.
According to the report, eliminating gender discrimination in agriculture could result in increase in the size of global economy and alleviate hunger at a time when over 345 million people are estimated to experience acute food insecurity.

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The ‘Banking on Climate Chaos Report’ was co-authored by several institutions including Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network among others.
According to this report, world’s 60 largest banks have spent 5.5 trillion USD for funding fossil fuel projects since 2016, when the Paris Agreement came into effect. J P Morgan Chase is the top bank financing fossil fuels globally from 2016–2022.

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The State of World Population report titled ‘8 Billion Lives, Infinite Possibilities’ was released recently by the United Nations Population Fund.
According to this report released by UNFPA, India is now the most populous country in the world, as it has surpassed China’s population numbers.

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India has jumped six places and ranked 38 out of 139 countries in the 7th edition of World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2023.
As per the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India has seen remarkable improvement on 4 out of 6 LPI indicators. The 2023 LPI for the first time measures the speed of trade. The Index is topped by Singapore, followed by Finland.

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The Air Pollution Tolerance Index is a tool used to assess the tolerance capacity of a crop or tree species against air pollution. A new study has found that certain trees and crops endemic to India have high APTI.
Trees such as pipal, neem, mango and crops like maize, pigeon pea and safflower, which are endemic to India can help lower the impact of air pollution by absorbing and filtering pollutants.

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The World Bank recently announced the Business Ready(B-READY) project as a replacement for the Doing Business rankings, which was cancelled two years ago.
The pilot edition of the series will be published in the spring of 2024, covering 54 economies. Business Ready focuses on 10 topics covering the lifecycle of a firm.

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‘Global Network Against Food Crisis’ was founded by the European Commission for International Cooperation and Development, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) at the first World Humanitarian Summit in 2016.
According to a report by this international alliance, the number of people experiencing acute hunger and requiring urgent food, nutrition and livelihood assistance has increased by 34 per cent from 2021 to 2022.