New Delhi: India ranked 134 out of 182 countries, the same as in 2006, in the 2009 Human Development Report released on Monday.
China registered the largest gain in rank, moving up seven places to finish at 92. The United States dropped one place to end at 13.
The HDR ranks countries on the Human Development Index (HDI), measuring their progress on three key indicators — education, life expectancy and income measured by purchasing power parity. Developed in 1990 jointly by Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq, the HDI is a summary measure of a country’s human development. The 2009 HDI was calculated using 2007 data for 182 countries but significantly they do not reflect the effects of the global economic crisis, which have been felt the most by the developed countries in the West.
India’s abysmal standing among nations of the world notwithstanding, it is acknowledged to have made steady progress on the HDI — going up from 0.556 in 2000 to 0.612 in 2007 at an annual rise of 1.33 per cent. At number one, Norway toted up a near perfect HDI value of 0.971. India’s scores on the key indicators: life expectancy 63.4 years; adult literacy rate 66 per cent; combined gross enrolment ratio 61 per cent; and per capita GDP on $ PPP terms 2753.
