a few excerpts from the article...
Pakistan and Afghanistan are among the world's top 10 most vulnerable states, according to a new study.
The report - compiled by the US Foreign Policy magazine and the US-based Fund for Peace think-tank - ranked 146 nations according to their viability.
Judged according to 12 criteria, including human flight and economic decline, states range from the most failed, Sudan, to the least, Norway.
Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are rated 19th, 20th and 25th respectively.
The top 60 positions in the list were occupied almost exclusively by African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries.
India was ranked 93rd, Bhutan came 39th and the Maldives were not mentioned.
..........Pakistan moved from 34th last year to ninth in the new report - one of the sharpest changes in the overall score of any country on the list.
The contributing factors were Pakistan's inability to police the tribal areas near the Afghan border, the devastating earthquake last October in Kashmir and rising ethnic tensions, the report said.
...........India might have the edge over China (57) in the long run, the report's authors suggested.
Pauline Baker, president of the Fund for Peace, told the Associated Press news agency that India had greater social mobility and was more decentralised than its more populous neighbour.
source:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4964934.stm