India in international Rankings

Global GDP ranking of India

India is the fourth largest economy on the basis of GDP on PPP. The top 10 countries of the world as per GDP (Million Dollar) on PPP are as follows:

Human Development Index

• In 2020 Human Development Index prepared by United Nations Development programme (UNDP) India ranked 131, marking a drop of two notch from its HDI rank from 129 in 2019 among 189 countries that were ranked. The 2020 UNDP reported figures of health, education and standard of living of the year 2019 while 2019 report used figures of 2018.
• HDI a composite index which measures average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development– a long and healthy life (as measured by life expectancy at birth) , knowledge (as measured by expected years of schooling) and a decent standard of living (as measured by purchasing power parity per capita GDP).
• UNDP has released in  planetary pressures-adjusted Human Development Index for 2020. This means that the standard Human Development Index (HDI) is adjusted by a nation’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint.
• For the first time, the United Nations Development Programme introduced a new metric to reflect the impact caused by each country’s per-capita carbon emissions and its material footprint, which measures the amount of fossil fuels, metals and other resources used to make the goods and services it consumes.
• If the conventional HDI Index were adjusted to assess the planetary pressures caused by each nation’s development, India would move up eight places in the ranking.
• Norway, which tops the HDI, falls 15 places if this metric is used, leaving Ireland at the top of the table. In fact, 50 countries would drop entirely out of the “very high human development group” category, using this new metric, called the Planetary Pressures-adjusted HDI, or PHDI. Australia falls 72 places in the ranking, while the United States and Canada would fall 45 and 40 places respectively, reflecting their disproportionate impact on natural resources.
• China’s net emissions (8 gigatonnes) are 34% below its territorial emissions (12.5 gigatonnes) compared with 19% in India and 15% in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• In South Asia Bhutan stood better in HDI ranking than India at 129, but Bangladesh (133), Nepal ( 142), and Pakistan (154) performed lower in this respect. However, South Asian countries were bracketed together as middle HDI countries.
• India’s HDI value for 2019 was 0.645 putting it into medium human development category.
• Norway topped the HDI index followed by Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Iceland.
• Although this year’s report covers 2019 only, and does not account for the impact of COVID, it projected that in 2020, global HDI would fall below for the first time in the three decades since the Index was introduced.

Ease of Doing Business

• India is ranked 63 among 190 economies in the ease of doing business, according to the latest World Bank annual ratings. The rank of India improved to 63 in 2019 from 77 in 2018.
• India has improved its ranking by 79 positions in five years (2014-19).
• India also figured among the top 10 performers on the list for the third time in a row.
• The Ease of doing business index ranks countries against each other based on how the regulatory environment is conducive to business operations, strongerprotections of property rights. Economies with a high rank (1 to 20) have simpler and more friendly regulations for businesses.
• The rankings are based on a country’s performance on 10 indicators such as starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, etc.
• Consultancy firm McKinsey in a report released on Wednesday said that even as India rose from 130th overall in 2016 to 63rd in 2020 in the business index, Indian companies still face obstacles ranging from delayed payments for public procurement to tedious and slow processes for obtaining permits.
• Consultancy firm McKinsey in a report released on Wednesday said that even as India rose from 130th overall in 2016 to 63rd in 2020 in the business index, Indian companies still face obstacles ranging from delayed payments for public procurement to tedious and slow processes for obtaining permits.
• In 2014, India was ranked 142nd.
• In ease of doing business, New Zealand was ranked best on no 1 rank, followed by Singapore, Hong Kong and Denmark.

Global Competitiveness Index

• The Global Competitiveness Report is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. Since 2004, the Global Competitiveness Report ranks countries based on the Global Competitiveness Index, developed by Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Elsa V. Artadi.
• Also India held the 43rd rank on the Institute for Management Development (IMD)’s annual World Competitiveness Index 2021.
• Switzerland led the 64-nation list, followed by Sweden (moved up to the second position from sixth in 2020), Denmark, the Netherlands and Singapore.
• Among the BRICS countries, India was ranked second after China (16), followed by Russia (45th), Brazil (57th) and South Africa (62nd).
• IMD stated, that for the past three years, India has retained its position and in 2021 the country made a major advancements in government efficiency.
• The Netherlands tops the Global compitiveness ranking.

Global Corruption Perception Index

• India’s rank improved from  ranked 86 in 2021 to 85 in 2022 with  the same CPI score of 40 in the Transparency International’s report.
• The Corruption Perception Index is prepared by a global agency known as Transparency International to measure perceived level of corruption in the public or government sector.
• TI uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
• China’s score was 45 while India’s is 40. Other Asian countries are also not better with Pakistan’s score at 28, Bangladesh’s at 26 and Indonesia’s at 38.
• New Zealand was the best with a score of 88 followed by Denmark (88) and Finland (86).
• Except Bhutan all other neighbours of India are ranked below it.
• Pakistan dropped 16 spots in the CPI index to 140th rank.
• Somalia, South Sudan and Syria in the same order were the worst in the CPI index.
• The report highlighted concerns over the risk to journalists and activists who have been “victims of attacks by the police, political militants, criminal gangs and corrupt local officials.”
• According to the report, “Civil society organisations that speak up against the government have been targeted with security, defamation, sedition, hate speech and contempt-of-court charges, and with regulations on foreign funding,”
• In an effort to shine a light on corruption and initiate changes for the better, the organisation Transparency.org has created the Corruption Perceptions Index, which uses expert assessments and opinion surveys to rank countries based upon their perceived level of corruption. Initially launched in 1995, the CPI defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit.”

Global Hunger Index

• The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool that measures and tracks hunger globally as well as by region and by country, prepared by European NGOs of Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe. The GHI is calculated annually, and its results appear in a report issued in October each year.
• In the 2021 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 101st out of the 116 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2021 GHI scores. With a score of 27.5, India has a level of hunger that is serious.
• It is important to note that GHI scores, rankings, and indicator values are comparable only within each year’s report, not between different years’ reports, owing to revisions of the source data and methodology.
• India is also among the 31 countries where hunger has been identified as serious. India ranked 94 among 107 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) released last year.
• Only 15 countries fare worse than India. These include Papua New Guinea (102), Afghanistan (103), Nigeria (103), Congo (105), Mozambique (106), Sierra Leone (106), Timor-Leste (108), Haiti (109), Liberia (110), Madagascar (111), Democratic Republic of Congo (112), Chad (113), Central African Republic (114), Yemen (115) and Somalia (116).
• India was also behind most of the neighbouring countries. Pakistan was placed at 92 rank, Nepal at 76 and Bangladesh also at 76
• Current projections based on the Global Hunger Index (GHI) show that the world as a whole — and 47 countries in particular — will fail to achieve even low hunger by 2030.
• The Index tracks key indicators used to measure progress toward Zero Hunger by 2030 at national, regional, and global levels. Based on the values of the four indicators – undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and child mortality- the GHI determines hunger on a 100-point scale, where 0 is the best possible score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst. Each country’s GHI score is classified by severity, from low to extremely alarming.
• Somalia has the highest level of hunger according to the 2021 GHI ranking — its GHI score of 50.8 is considered extremely alarming, It is preceded by five countries with levels of hunger that are alarming — Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, and Yemen — and 31 countries that have serious levels of hunger.

Gender Inequality Index

• In the UNDP report, titled ‘Human Development Report 2020: The Next Frontier Human Development and the Anthropocene’ , India dropped two spots to 131 out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) this year, according to a report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme. The country ranked 129 on HDI in 2019 and 130 in 2018.
• The Gender Inequality Index (GII) is an index for measurement of gender disparity that was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
• According to the UNDP, this index is a composite measure to quantify the loss of achievement within a country due to gender inequality. It uses three dimensions to measure opportunity cost: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor market participation. The new index was introduced as an experimental measure to remedy the shortcomings of the previous indicators, the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), both of which were introduced in the 1995 Human Development Report.
• WEF’s gender gap index: India slips 28 places, ranks 140 among 156 nations. India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, becoming the third-worst performer in South Asia.

India in ‘World Inequality Report 2022

• As per the ‘World Inequality Report 2022’, India is among the most unequal countries in the world, with rising poverty and an ‘affluent elite. ‘ T
• he report highlights that the top 10% and top 1% in India hold 57% and 22% of the total national income respectively while the bottom 50% share has gone down to 13%.