15. Flash Check — 38 Questions

1. Which organisation publishes the Human Development Report, and what three dimensions make up the HDI?
2. What is the key structural difference between the HDI and the Multidimensional Poverty Index, given both come from the same parent organisation?
3. Name the two NGOs that jointly publish the Global Hunger Index.
4. Which UN agency publishes the World Press Freedom Index?
5. What are the four categories, in order from most to least democratic, in the EIU's Democracy Index? Which category is India in?
6. Which organisation publishes the Corruption Perceptions Index, and what does its 0–100 scale represent?
7. Name the publisher of the Rule of Law Index and list at least four of its eight measured factors.
8. Which report was discontinued by the World Bank in September 2021, and why?
9. What is the name of the new World Bank series that has replaced it?
10. Which report, published by the World Economic Forum, was discontinued after its 2019 edition — and which different organisation still publishes a similarly-named ranking every year?
11. Which UN specialised agency publishes the Global Innovation Index, and why does its institutional mandate make it a natural fit?
12. Name the five UN agencies that jointly publish the SOFI report, and contrast this with the Global Hunger Index's publishers.
13. Which index ranks India near the bottom of the table (EPI or CCPI), and which ranks it in the global top 10? Explain the divergence in one sentence.
14. Which organisation publishes the Logistics Performance Index, and roughly how has India's rank moved between 2014 and 2023?
15. In what year was the IMF founded, and at which conference? Name the sister institution founded at the same conference.
16. What year was the WTO established, and which earlier agreement/body did it succeed?
17. How many times has India served as a UNSC non-permanent member, and what grouping is India part of that seeks a permanent seat?
18. Which regional grouping has been largely dormant since 2016, and what event triggered the suspension of its summit cycle?
19. In what year did India join the SCO as a full member?
20. Which country's presidency of the G20 (2023) saw the African Union admitted as a full member?
21. Name the UN agency, founded in 1919, that predates the United Nations itself and inherited its mandate from the League of Nations.
22. Is India a member of the OECD? What is its formal engagement status instead?
23. Which organisation is headquartered in Geneva, founded in 1964 specifically to strengthen developing countries' voice in global trade rules?
24. What does the Global Peace Index measure, across which three broad domains, and who publishes it?
25. Name one governance-related index whose India ranking the Indian government has formally and publicly disputed, and state the general nature of its objection.
26. Distinguish an "index," a "report," and a "ranking" as terms, using one example of each from this book.
27. Name the two broad data-collection families an index's methodology can fall into, give one example index of each, and explain why perception-based indices are more often disputed by governments.
28. Which WEF index was discontinued after its 2018 edition with no public scandal, and why does that make it a more dangerous trap than the Ease of Doing Business discontinuation?
29. Name India's own domestic adaptation of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index, the body that publishes it, and the approximate headcount-ratio change it reported.
30. Distinguish the ICC from the ICJ, and state India's membership status in each.
31. Which international organisation, headquartered in India, was the first-ever intergovernmental body to be based on Indian soil? Name its co-founding country and its host city.
32. Name the India-founded body focused on disaster- and climate-resilient infrastructure standards, and its headquarters city.
33. Which private company's index ranks India around 4th globally for conventional military strength, and why is this index not considered as academically rigorous as SIPRI's data?
34. Name the private Swiss company that produces the annual World Air Quality Report, and explain why its methodology sits in the "statistical" rather than "perception" family.
35. Which body took over publication of the Global Wealth Report after its original publisher's 2023 collapse?
36. Name NITI Aayog's index that ranks Indian states on export readiness, and distinguish it from the World Investment Report and the Global Financial Centres Index.
37. What is India's observer status at the Arctic Council, and which Indian Arctic research station is commonly paired with this fact?
38. Name the Kearney-published index that measures executives' forward-looking confidence in FDI destinations, and explain in one sentence how it differs methodologically from UNCTAD's World Investment Report.

Answers are deliberately not printed here — the "Practice Recall" boxes and tables throughout this book give you everything needed to self-check every question above. Treat working through your own answers, then re-reading only where you falter, as the whole point of the Flash Check.