Rating peacefulness
The first-ever Global Peace Index (GPI) was unveiled recently, revealing some unpleasant surprises for Southasia in general, and all-but-shining India in particular. The GPI, which for the first time has attempted to rank 121 countries according to their "absence of violence", placed India at 109 – shockingly, one spot lower than Burma. Iraq was at the bottom, while Norway was considered the most 'peaceful' country. The GPI was developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit in conjunction with an international panel of academics and experts. Researchers utilised a definition of violence that included unrest both within and between countries.
Other Southasian countries did even worse, with Sri Lanka at 111 and Pakistan at 115. Indeed, on the GPI's global map, the Southasian region is coloured almost completely red, meaning the "state of peace" is "very low". Bhutan, however, at 19, was placed better than much of the rest of the world, something that will surely make it onto glossy travel brochures in the very near future. China as a whole was placed 60th, and Bangladesh 86th, while Afghanistan, Nepal and the Maldives were mysteriously absent from the rankings altogether – not that their inclusion would have dramatically changed the region's colour scheme. On India, one hypothesis for its low ranking could be that, while looking at the country through the prism of a centralised state, it may look 'stable'. But whether there is 'peace' in the units of the Indian Union is another matter – consider the Northeast, Kashmir, Jharkhand, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat!
Pakistan/India
Pakistan panchayat
A group of Indian Panchayati Raj officials, intellectuals and activists are scheduled to visit Pakistan on a mission in July, to discuss India's experiences of local self-governance – known as Panchayati Raj. India's Minister for Panchayati Raj, Mani Shankar Aiyar, will head the 50-person mission, which is to last all of three days.
The crossborder exchange will be the result of an agreement made nearly two years ago (as well as a follow-up agreement made last December) between Aiyar and the head of Pakistan's National Reconstruction Bureau to create an India-Pakistan Joint Forum for Local Governance. Under Pervez Musharraf's rule, Pakistan took on a new system of local governance in 2001, and interest in India's Panchayati Raj system has been periodically expressed by Islamabad ever since.