India has been ranked 131 out of 188 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI), making it the third-largest Asian economy and in the same bracket as South Asian neighbours Pakistan, Bhutan and Nepal, according to a new United Nations report surveyed for human development.
In 2014, India’sHDI rank was also 131. Since then the country has made no improvement in its ranking over the previous year, despite the Human Development Report for 2015 noting that foreign direct investment favours countries such as China and India.
However, the latest report found that 63 per cent Indians were "satisfied" with their standard of living in 2014-15.
Released annually by the UN Development Programme, the report said, India's rank of 131 puts it in the "medium human development" bracket, which includes nations like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Kenya, Myanmar and Nepal.
India's score for overall life satisfaction was 4.3 on a scale of 1-10. India's HDI rank value in 2015 stood at 0.624, up from 0.580 in 2010. The Gross National Income per capita was USD5,663.00 in 2015 and its life expectancy at birth stood at 68.3 years, the report said.
On the perception of feeling safe, 69 per cent of respondents answered "yes," while on freedom of choice, 72 per cent of female respondents said they were "satisfied" as compared with 78 per cent of male respondents.
Asked about the government, 69 per cent of respondents said they trusted the national government for the 2014-15 period, while 74 per cent said they had confidence in the judicial system.
The development report lauded measures such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGA), which was designed to generate employment.
The report also highlighted that increasing clean energy investments in India by 1.5 per cent of the GDP every year for the next 20 years will generate a net increase of about 10 million jobs annually, after factoring in job losses from retrenchments in the fossil fuel industries.