India stuck as China climbs happiness index

Country still ranked 127th in human development.

India's Human Development Index (HDI) improved from 0.595 in 2002 to 0.602 in 2003, though it continued to rank 127th on a list of 177 countries.

Neighbours like China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka improved their rankings, according to the Human Development Report 2005, released by the United Nations Development Programme today. 
 

Human development index
	HDI rank		HDI value
	2002	2003	2002	2003
Norway	1	1	0.956	0.963
Australia	3	3	0.946	0.955
USA	8	10	0.939	0.944
Japan	9	11	0.938	0.943
Brazil	72	63	0.775	0.792
China	94	85	0.745	0.755
Sri Lanka	96	93	0.74	0.751
South Africa	119	120	0.666	0.658
India	127	127	0.595	0.602
Pakistan	142	135	0.494	0.525
Bangladesh	138	139	0.509	0.52
The Human Development Index (HDI) measures life expectancy, adult  literacy rates, the gross enrolment and per capita gross domestic product

While Namibia ranks at 125, Sao Tome & Principe is ranked 126th, Solomon Islands is ranked a level below India at 128, followed by Myanmar at 129.

Among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies, Brazil and China improved their rankings.

Pakistan moved up from the low human development category to the medium human development group.

Norway continued to top the ranking, followed by Iceland""which moved up from the seventh position""and Australia. The USA slipped two places to be ranked 10th this year, while Japan also fell two notches to the 11th position.

In terms of the Human Poverty Index (HPI)""a measure of deprivation""India slipped 10 places from last year to be ranked at 48 on a list of 95 developing countries.

The HPI is a measure of the proportion of people below a threshold in basic dimensions of income and human development""life expectancy, education and living standards. The HPI value for India in 2003 was 31.3 per cent, way below the 12.3 per cent in China and 10.3 per cent in Brazil, the report said. In 2002, the HPI value for India was 31.4 per cent, according to the previous Human Development Report.

The percentage decline in the number of deprived was, however, much sharper in Brazil, South Africa and China.

As compared to the previous report, the country also reported a marginal dip in the performance on life expectancy and adult literacy.

While the life expectancy at birth was reported at 63.7 years in 2002, it was down to 63.3 years in 2003. The percentage of adult literates was also down from 61.3 per cent to 61 per cent.

The combined gross enrolment ratio or primary, secondary and tertiary schools was however, up from 55 per cent as reported in the previous HDR to 60 per cent now.

Gross domestic product per capita was also up from $ 2,670 to $ 2,892.