India records an aggregate loss of 13 percentage points in trust compared to last year; China improves its index, by gaining 8 points in public trust.
New Delhi: India, which ranked as one of the ‘most trusted nations’ in the past, has witnessed a strong fall in public faith in its institutions such as government, media and NGOs, according to the Edelman Trust report.
The Edelman Trust Barometer 2018 shows that of the 28 countries surveyed, six, including India, have shown a strong loss of trust. India recorded an aggregate loss of 13 percentage points in trust compared to last year.
The US remains the biggest loser of trust in this category with a 37 percentage point drop since Donald Trump took over as President. “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman.
China, on the other hand, topped the trust index with a strong gain of faith in its government, which jumped by eight points to 84 per cent among the general population, and by three points to 89 per cent within the informed public. In all, the trust of its population increased by 27 per cent year-on-year.
For India, the faith of the public in the media declined to 61 per cent from 66 per cent year-on-year. Globally too, the media was the least trusted institution. For the US, the surveyed population lost a 5 percentage point trust in media as well.
The trust of Indian citizens in their government also declined by 5 percentage points in the 2018 report to touch 70 percentage points. The trust in NGOs declined by 3 percentage points, but the confidence in businesses remained unchanged at 74 per cent.
Other Asian countries on the list including the UAE, South Korea and Malaysia showed strong gains in trust in all four institutions by 24 percentage points, 23 percentage points and 19 percentage points, respectively. However, other countries such as Russia, Indonesia, Japan and Hong Kong showed only a moderate gain in trust for the same.
Singapore is the only other Asian country besides India to show a loss in trust in its institutions by 10 percentage points.
Even after being the fifth country on the chart that lost the most trust, India still remains among the top three most trusted countries among the 28 in the report, below China and Indonesia.