Human Development Index 2021–22 and India

The Human Development Report 2021–22, brought out by the United Nations Development Programme, shows that India’s global rankings have gone down from 130 in 2020 to 132 in 2021. This is not surprising as the growth in India’s Human Development Index (HDI) values have decelerated faster than the global values during the pandemic. India’s HDI values, which were stagnant in 2019, fell marginally in 2020—the first year of the pandemic—and the fall accelerated almost threefold to -1.4% in 2021. However, at the global level, the fall in HDI indicators was stemmed in 2021 at 0.4%, which is marginally lower than in 2020. This sharp deterioration in India’s HDI values by implication tends to have declining impact on that of both South Asia and medium HDI countries, which include India. The regional numbers show that the highest decline in HDI values in 2021 was in South Asia (0.9%) primarily on account of India’s poor performance. The highest improvement in HDI values was in Europe and Central Asia, and East Asia and the Pacific, where it registered some marginal growth. However, while the HDI values in the Arab countries remained stagnant, it continued to fall in Latin America and the Caribbean.