Misinformation biggest risk for India, world: WEF study

New Delhi: With close to 300 crore people expected to head to elections across countries including India and the US in two years, misinformation and societal polarisation have emerged among the biggest immediate risks before the world, a global study showed on Wednesday.

In the case of India alone, ‘misinformation and disinformation’ poses the top-most threat in the next two years, the World Economic Forum (WEF) said in its annual ‘Global Risks Report’. It is followed by infectious diseases, illicit economic activity, income inequality and labour shortage among the five biggest short-term risks. On a longer-term horizon of ten years, the biggest global risk would be from extreme weather events.

The report warned of a global risk landscape in which progress in human development is being chipped away slowly, leaving states and individuals vulnerable to new and resurgent risks. “Against a backdrop of systemic shifts in global power dynamics, climate, technology and demographics, global risks are stretching the world’s adaptative capacity to its limit,” the WEF said.

The report, released ahead of the WEF’s five-day annual meeting in Davos beginning January 15, argued that cooperation on urgent global issues could be in increasingly short supply, requiring new approaches to addressing risks.

“Two-thirds of global experts anticipate a multipolar or fragmented order to take shape over the next decade, in which middle and great powers contest and set – but also enforce – new rules and norms,” it said.