News Delhi: India ranked 132nd among 191 countries in the 2021 Human Development Index – one spot below its position in 2020 – a United Nations Development Programme report published on Thursday showed.
The report took into account factors such as their citizens’ ability to lead a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.
India’s Human Development Index, or HDI, dropped to 0.633 in 2021 from 0.642 in 2020. Since 1990, India’s Human Development Index had improved every year, before it went stagnant in 2019. In 2020, the index fell by 0.003 point, while it registered a sharper decline of 0.009 point in 2021.
Despite the change, India continued to remain in the category of countries with “medium human development”. The category has 43 nations, mostly from Asia, Africa and South America.
Among India’s neighbours, Sri Lanka (73rd), China (79th), Bangladesh (129th) and Bhutan (127th) are ranked above India, while Pakistan (161st), Nepal (143rd) and Myanmar (149th) are worse off.
Switzerland remained at the top spot, followed by Norway and Iceland. South Sudan, Chad and Niger were three countries at the bottom of the list.
The 0.009 point drop in India’s Human Development Index in 2021 was due to a decline in life expectancy at birth from 70.1 years in 2020 to 67.2 last year.
“Between 1990 and 2021, India’s life expectancy at birth changed by 8.6 years, mean years of schooling changed by 3.9 years and expected years of schooling changed by 3.9 years,” the report noted. “India’s GNI [Gross National Income] per capita changed by about 268.1 percent between 1990 and 2021.”
India’s gross national income per capita rose to $6,590 (Rs 5,25, 181) in 2021 from $6,107 (Rs 4,86,689) in 2020 on purchasing power parity, or PPP, basis.
The PPP is a measurement of prices in different countries that uses the prices of specific goods to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries’ currencies. Scroll. In
