New Delhi: India climbed one spot to rank 129 out of 180 countries in the latest Human Development Index (HDI) report released by the United Nations Development Programme Monday.
Last year, the country had ranked 130 in the UN’s human development index record.
The 2019 report, titled ‘Beyond Income, beyond averages, and beyond today’, sought to measure a country’s overall HDI by its advances in education, standards of living and health.
The report estimated the HDI value of the South Asian region to be at 0.642 and placed India at an above-average position at 0.647. This value kept India in the medium level development category of nations with Pakistan (ranked 152), Nepal (147) and Bangladesh (135).
China, meanwhile, raced ahead with a ranking of 85, putting it in the ‘high’ development category.
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India’s ranking drops on gender parity
India’s ranking, however, dropped to 122 when the HDI was adjusted for gender parity.
According to the report, India’s ‘inequality-adjusted HDI’ also lowered from 0.647 (mentioned above) to 0.447 — meaning it loses 26.3 per cent of its development score due to various inequalities.
The report also noted that India’s HDI value has increased by over 50 per cent between 1990 and 2018 (from 0.431 to 0.647). Within the same time period, life expectancy has increased by 11.6 years, meaning years of schooling has gone up by 3.5 years and expected years of schooling increased by 4.7 years.
Even as India lifted 271 million people out of poverty from 2005-06 to 2015-16, the report stated that it still “accounts for 28 per cent of the 1.3 billion multidimensional poor”.
Shoko Noda, UNDP’s India resident representative, said in a statement that schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and Ayushman Bharat were “crucial in ensuring that we meet our promise to leave no one behind”.
‘New generation of inequalities’
The report further acknowledged a “new generation” of inequalities that are emerging, driven by climate change and technology.
If not managed properly, the report warned how “…climate crisis is already hitting the poorest hardest, while technological advances such as machine learning and artificial intelligence can leave behind entire groups of people, even countries”.
(Edited by Myithili Hazarika)
Also read: Per capita income, human development rankings puncture holes in India’s GDP rise story
For us to know all these things are not new .The atmosphere in the nation itself shows there is imparity in country not possible to repair unless improvement in government machinery, methods