HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX REPORT

Sept. 15, 2018

In the latest human development Index (HDI) released by the UNDP, India is ranked 130 out of 189 countries with the findings indicating a glaring inequality in the country though “millions have been lifted out of poverty”.

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Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland and Germany lead the ranking.
Niger, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Chad and Burundi have the lowest scores.
The overall trend globally is toward continued human development improvements: out of the 189 countries for which the HDI is calculated, 59 countries are today in the very high human development group and only 38 countries fall in the low HDI group.
South Asia experienced the fastest HDI growth among developing regions with a 45.3 % increase since 1990. South Asia has the widest gap between men and women in HDI at 16.3%.

India’s Ranking:

India climbed one spot to 130 out of 189 countries in the latest rankings.
India’s HDI value for 2017 is 0.640, which put the country in the medium human development category.
Between 1990 and 2017, India’s HDI value increased from 0.427 to 0.640 (an increase of nearly 50%), life expectancy at birth increased by nearly 11 years, Indian school-age children can expect to stay in school for 4.7 years longer and GNI per capita increased by a 266 %.
Within South Asia, India’s HDI value is above the average of 0.638 for the region, with Bangladesh and Pakistan being ranked 136 and 150 respectively.
8 % of India’s HDI value is lost on account of inequalities -- a greater loss than for most of its South Asian neighbours (the average loss for the region is 26.1 percent). This confirms that inequality remains a challenge for India as it progresses economically.
India performs better than its neighbours Bangladesh and Pakistan, ranking 127 out 160 countries on the Gender Inequality Index.