'India has world's fourth strongest military, US most powerful'

India has the fourth strongest military globally while the US has the most powerful followed by Russia and China, according to the Global Firepower's recently released Military Strength Rankings for 2024.

The rankings put Pakistan at number nine while Bhutan has the least powerful military in the world.

The Global Firepower keeps track of defence-related information of 145 different countries.

While ranking the military powers of these countries, it takes into account around 60 factors, including the number of troops, military equipment, financial stability, geographic location, and available resources. These factors together determine a PowerIndex score, where lower scores indicate stronger military capabilities.

The Global Firepower military strength report also examines how each nation's ranking has changed from one year to the next.

The rankings placed South Korea at number five, the UK at number six, and Japan at number seven. Turkey, Pakistan and Italy were ranked number eight, nine and 10 respectively.