Covid's medium-term impact and India's Human Development Index loss

While some of the HDI loss will survive into the future, it does not necessarily affect India's index rank in relation to others, which is down by just one over the six years to 2021, writes T N Ninan

It is a stark testimony to the medium-term havoc caused by the Covid pandemic that many countries, including India, have suffered a setback during 2020 and 2021 to their human development index (HDI)—a composite of indicators for health, education and income. After sustained, if somewhat slow progress over decades, India has seen a setback on life expectancy as well as on the education front. Interestingly, the lowering of its HDI score happened more in 2021 than in 2020. India’s index is now only fractionally above what it was in 2015.

Some of the damage can be undone quickly. Absent the