News in Shorts: 22 January 2025

Edelman Trust Barometer

Context: The 25th edition of the annual Edelman Trust Barometer has been released recently.

• The report is a result of a survey conducted on over 33,000 respondents across 28 countries by the Global communications firm Edelman 
• Objective: To study the influence of trust across society — government, media, business, and NGOs 

Key Highlights of the Report

• Overall Trust: India ranks 3rd and is replaced by Indonesia when it comes to people’s overall trust in the government, businesses, media and NGOs.
  • Low-Income population: They are far less trusting than the high income group and ranked 3rd.
  • High Income Population: India was ranked fourth after Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and China
  • Percentage: Less than 65% of the low income population reposed faith in Indian institutions while the number was 80% in case of high income people.
• India is ranked at the 13th place when it comes to trust of people in other countries, in companies with Indian headquarters.
• Sense  of Grievance: Sixty-one percent globally have a moderate or high sense of grievance defined by a belief that government and business serve narrow interests, and wealthy people benefit unfairly from the system.

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• Fear of Discrimination: 63% of the respondents across all genders, ages, and income fear experienced discrimination with the largest jump seen among whites in the US.
• Faith in Institutional Leaders: An average of 69% of respondents worry that government officials, business leaders and journalists deliberately mislead them.
• Credible Information:  63% of the respondents says it is harder to find out if an information is from credible source.
• Trust in Top Economies: Five of the largest 10 global economies were among the least trusting nations on the Trust Index
  • Japan (the least trusting at 37%), Germany (41%), the UK (43%), the US (47%) and France (48%).
• Developing nations: They turned out to be more trusting with,
  • China (77%), Indonesia (76%), India (75%) and the UAE (72)% once again were on top of the Trust Index.
• Hostile Activism: It is seen as a legitimate tool to drive change with 4 in 10 approving of one or more of the following forms of hostile activism,
  • Attacking people online, intentionally spreading disinformation, threatening or committing violence, damaging public or private property.