Bangladesh has moved eight notches down in the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Democracy Index-2017, and the country's score on the state of democracy has also dropped compared to 2016.

It has ranked 92nd with a score of 5.43 out of 10 whereas it ranked 84th with a score of 5.73 in 2016.

Bangladesh, however, continues to be in the “hybrid regime” category, showed the index released on the website of London-based magazine The Economist today.

Democracy Index 2017 by Daily Star on Scribd

Norway once again tops the Index global ranking in 2017 whilst at the other end of the rankings North Korea, with a total score of 1.08, remains firmly ensconced in last place.

In terms of its overall average score, Asia experienced the biggest decline of any of the seven regions covered by The Economist in 2017, when its average score fell to 5.63.

Meanwhile, world average for 2017 was 5.48 falling from 5.52 in 2016, the report says.

The EIU is the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, the sister company of The Economist newspaper.

Media freedom around the world has fallen to its lowest level since The Economist began producing the Democracy Index in 2006, and restrictions on freedom of speech have become commonplace even in developed democracies.

Only 30 countries in the world containing 11% of the world population remains fully free in the category ‘Media freedom around the world, 2017’ whilst 47 countries containing 35.9% of the world population was termed as ‘unfree’.