4 April 2014

India Ranks 102nd on Social Development Index


http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/india-ranks-102nd-on-social-development-index/?ref=world

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE APRIL 3, 2014,

Mansi Thapliyal/ReutersIndia ranked 97th of 132 countries on nutrition and access to basic medical care.

NEW DELHI — As the world’s largest democracy heads to the polls in less than a week, and as politicians vying for a governing coalition tout their plans for economic and social development, a reportpublished by an American nonprofit shows that India performs poorly on a range of social development indicators, ranking 102nd among the 132 countries surveyed.

India fared worse in the overall rankings than all the countries in South and Central Asia studied by the Social Progress Imperative, except Pakistan, which ranked 124th.

Of the so-called BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — which are seen as having the greatest potential for economic dynamism, only India ranked lower than the 100th position. China was next lowest of the five, in the 90th position, and Brazil was the highest, at 46th.

The Social Progress Index focuses on development indicators beyond gross domestic product, including nutrition, water and sanitation, access to health care and education, and personal rights. The index was the idea of Michael E. Porter, the Harvard business professor who earlier helped develop the Global Competitiveness Report, and its methodology took two years to develop.

For both India and China, deaths linked to air pollution were flagged in the report as cause for concern. Though China outperformed India in almost all of the survey’s indicators, including the provision of basic needs, India was far ahead of China with regard to personal rights, the report says, including freedom of speech and assembly.

Courtesy of Social Progressive Imperative A tabular comparison of India and China’s ranks on various social indicators.

However, India’s performance on indicators measuring tolerance and inclusion was the second-weakest worldwide, trailed only by Iraq. The index partially bases rankings for these factors on Gallup World Poll results for questions about the respect for women and attitudes toward immigrants and homosexuals. Other data on violence against minorities and religious tolerance are also taken into account.
Recent political campaigns in India have focused on several high-profile corruption scandals involving the government and the perceived need to clean up Indian governance. India fared better in the survey in terms of the perceived level of public-sector corruption, as compared with countries with similar levels of G.D.P. per capita, however. The report noted that political rights, like participation in the electoral process and political pluralism, were strong points for India.

New Zealand, Switzerland, Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway were the top five nations in the overall Social Progress rankings.

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