INDIA AND GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT INDEXES

 Since the  GDP or percapita income alone do not give an accurate picture of the quality of living of the people in any country various methods or indexes were designed and developed by experts and development practitioners from time to time, Accordingly the concept of human development is described as "the process of widening people's choices and the level of well-being they achieve are the core of the notiion of human development Such theories are neither finite nor static "Human Development Index (HDI) prepared by UNDP is widely accepted as a vital measure of development originally developed by Pakistani economist Mehabub Ul Haq and endorsed by Amartya Sen and others. Since 1990s HDI  has been prepared based on life expectancy at birth, education measured by mean of years of schooling and standard of living by Gross national per capita income. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three indicators. As per 2022 Human Development Report  India slipped one spot  to 132nd position out of 191 countries in 2021, compared to 131 position out of 189 countries in 2020.Indian HDI value 0f 0.633 places in the medium human development category which is lower than both global average of 0.732 and 0.645 value recorded by  the country in 2020.Among India's neighbours Srilanka ranked 73 followed by China 79,Bangladesh 129 and Bhutan 127 fared better than  India whereas Nepal 143,Myanmar 149 ,Pakistan 161were worse off. India's poor performance is attributed to fall in  life expectancy from 69.7 to 67.2 years, decline in Gross National Income percapita from $6681 to $ 6590and a drop in expected years of schooling because of Covid19. With an HDI value of 0.962 Switzerland occupy first place followed by Norway  with 0.961 HDI value.The devastating effects of Covid19, rising inequalities climate change, geo political conflicts,  higher malnutrition among children ,planetary and societal imbalances are intertwined vicious circle pulling back human development progress. 

        The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)was developed in 2010 by the Oxford Poverty &Human Development initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP and uses health, education and standard of living indicators to determine the incidence and intensity of poverty experienced by a population.All indicators are equally weighed. MPI is usually published along with the Human Development Report. Each dimension of the index (health, education, standard of living etc) is typically given an  equal waiting and each indicator within the dimension is also weighed equally. It may be noted here while both HDI and MPI use 3 broad dimensions-health, education and standard of living, the HDI uses indicators at the aggregate level while MPI uses micro data and all indicators must come from the same  survey.Due to non availability of data MPI is collected for 111 countries as against HDI for all countries. By identifying who is poor, the nature of their poverty (their deprivation profile) and how poor they are (deprivation score) the global MPI complements international $1.90 a day poverty rate.MPI report covering 6.1 billion people across 111 developing countries indicated that 1.2 billion people (19.1%) in these live in multidimensional poverty and half of then are children under 18 years of age The number of poor people is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (579 million) followed by South Asia (385 million) together account for 83% of poor.MPI Report 2022 observed that since 2005-2006 about 41.5 crores of Indians came out of MPI. Still India account for the largest number of poor people in the world (22.8 crores) followed by Nigeria (9.6 crores).However the incidence of poverty in India fell from 55.1% in 2005-06 to 16.4% in 2019- 21 along with significant reduction in deprivation of all 10 MPI indicators. Despite the strides made by India report observed that the ongoing task of ending poverty remains daunting especially in the context of prevailing global geopolitical inflationary recessionary and financial constraints.

       Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a method of measuring comprehensively global hunger at global, regional and national levels based on the values of 4 component indicators namely 1.undernourishment 2.child stunting 3.child wasting and 4 child mortality. GHI score is prepared on an 100 point scale.The index is  jointly released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhlife As per the report at the global level progress against hunger has largely stagnated in recent years  with a global score of 18.2in 2022 compared to 19.1 in 2014.As per GHI currently 44 counties have serious or alarming hunger levels. The GHI report 2022 report ranked India at 107 with a score of 29.1 out of 121 countries! India's performance indicators  namely Child  wasting (low weight for height stood  at 19.3% under nourishment also risen from 14.6% in 2018- 2020 to 16.3% in 2019-2021,whereas  child stunting (low height for age) has declined from 38.7% to35.5% between 2014 and 2022 and child mortality (mortality under the age 5)has also declined  from 4.6% to 3.3% during the same period However countries like Srilanka (64) ,Nepal (81),Bangladesh (84) and  Pakistan (99) performed better than India in GHI . Top Seventeen  Countries including China, Turkey and Kuwait had exemplary score below 5. Indian government objected the GHI report findings on the ground that 3 out of 4 indicators refer to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population.Secondly the Prevalence of under nourishment (POU) is estimated using FAO's Food Insecurity Experience scale Survey  Module (FIES-SM) which is conducted among merely 3000 respondents. Even though the index is skewed towards children's nutrition POU calculation based on data on food supply,energy needs and coefficient of variation  (CoV) due to differences income among other factors are very relevant. In any case as per National Family and Health Survey the decline in child mortality was significant between 2015 - 16 and 2019-21 but progress on child wasting and stunting was modest.Most disturbing trend was a rapid increase in the proportion of anemic children and women in India in the last 5 years. 

           World Happiness Report is being published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network-a Global initiative for the United Nations since 2012.World Happiness Index is prepared relying on three major wellbeing indicators namely life evaluation, positive emotions and negative emotions.Analysis takes into account following  variables. 1.GDP per capita in terms of Purchasing power parity 2.Time series for healthy life expectancy at birth 3.Social support if you are in trouble 4.Freedom to choose what you do with your life.5 Generosity in terms of donations to charity 6.Perceptions of corruption government or business corruption 7.Positive affect measures for laughter, enjoyment and doing or learning something interesting and 8.Negative effect as the average of previous day affect measures for worry, sadness and anger. According to 2022 World Happiness report Finland continues to be world's happiest country for the 5th year, followed by Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The least happy countries are Afghanistan, Lebanon, Zimbabwe Rwanda and Botswana respectively.  US managed 16th position followed by UK 17th and France 20th position. Though India showed a marginal improvement in ranking from 139 to 136 our neighbours excluding Afghanistan are far better with Nepal 84,Bangladesh 94, Pakistan 121 and Srilanka 127.It is disturbing to note that the fastest growing economy of the world,  India is among  the least happy countries Reasons attributed are rapid urbanization and congestion in cities, unemployment and declining income, corruption, rising costs of health care,issues of women's safety, environmental pollution and above all poor mental well-being. It can be observed that happiness has now accepted as a goal of policy making by countries across the globe.  Experience from several countries with higher GDP and percapita income suggest that they are not necessarily very happy and there exist vital link between the state of Happiness and rule of law. 

       As per Mercer CFS Global Pension Index studies 44 global pension systems that account for 65% of world population It analyses retirement income systems around the world suggesting possible areas of reforms The 2022 Pension Index ranked India 41st out of 44 countries as against 40th position among 43 nations last year whereas Iceland, Netherlands and Denmark top three in the index.According to the survey India had an overall index value of 44.4 in 2022,compared to 43.3 in 2021 which is less than 45.7 achieved in 2020 34th position out of 39 pension systems rated.The index takes into account retirement pension systems under three sub index- adequacy,sustainability and integrity where India scored 33.5,41.8 and 61 respectively in 2022.Iceland top the list with 84.7 value followed by Netherlands 84.6 and Denmark 82.0.Lowest value was reported by Thailand 41.7.In the absence of adequate social security in India the adequacy and sustainability sub indices can be improved much by expanding coverage under pension arrangements. According to the Survey since the prevalence of private pension plans is very low  in  India with about 95% of total work force is employed in the unorganized sector. This can be addressed only if labour codes when implemented take care of adequate improvement in the adequacy and  sustainability indices.

In nutshell India continues to be  lagging behind in almost all global development indicators namely Human Development Index, Multi dimensional Poverty Index, Global HungerIndex, World Happiness Index,and Global Pension Index .However despite some breakthrough achieved by the country wherein, since 2005-06 about 41.5 crores of Indians came out of MPI still India with 22.8 crores of poor accounted for largest number of poor people in the world and the task of poverty alleviation remains daunting. Despite the objections raised against Global Hunger Index ,the prevalence of undernourishment,food insecurity, and rapid increase in the proportion of anemic children and women continues to haunt the country.Our lack of happiness has been attributed to factors like unemployment, declining income, urbanization and congestion in cities,corruption, rising costs of health and issues of women's safety,pollution and   prominence of poor mental health.Largest proportion of workforce employed in the unorganized sector in India was responsible for poor ranking of 41 out of 43 countries in Global Pension Index.