Times of Better Bharat

India's external debt was US$778.2 billion at end-June 2026, an increase of US$15.4 billion over its level at end-March 2026, according to the Reserve Bank of India's external-debt statement.

The Bank's International Investment Position release, published alongside it, puts net claims of non-residents on India at US$220.3 billion at end-June 2026, an increase of US$16.5 billion during the first quarter of 2026-27. The Bank attributes the change mainly to an increase in external liabilities of US$11.6 billion and a decline of US$4.9 billion.

The World Bank's series on external debt stock, which runs to 2024, recorded US$716.5 billion. The two figures come from different compilers and different dates and are not directly comparable.

The flows behind the stock

Services trade is one of the flows that runs against the liability position. The RBI's monthly release on international trade in services records receipts of US$35,471 million in August 2026, against US$38,253 million in July, US$36,197 million in June, US$33,196 million in May and US$36,845 million in April. Payments were US$20,606 million in July 2026. The Bank also released invisibles data for April–June 2026-27 in the IMF's BPM6 format, without headline figures in the release text.

Remittances received were US$150.7 billion (World Bank, 2025), and foreign-exchange reserves covered 7.88 months of imports (World Bank, 2025). GDP was US$3.96 trillion in 2025, with growth of 7.6% a year (World Bank).

A different measure

The IMF puts general government gross debt — Centre and states combined, on the definition used for debt-sustainability analysis — at 83.4% of GDP for 2026, down from a peak near 89% in 2020. That presentation is contested: the Union Budget's central-government figure is about 55.6% for FY2026-27, and the two are not contradictory because they cover different entities.

What to watch

A debt stock of US$778.2 billion is a gross liability; the US$220.3 billion figure is the net position the RBI's IIP statement reports. The RBI publishes both series quarterly and manages the reserves; external commercial borrowing policy sits with the Department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry. The next quarterly stock figure, and the services receipts that offset it month to month, are the points at which the direction of travel will show.

Non-food bank credit grew 18.8% year on year in the fortnight ended 31 August 2026, compared with 10.2% a year earlier, according to the Reserve Bank of India's sectoral deployment release. The data are collected from 41 select scheduled commercial banks that together account for about 95% of total non-food credit by all SCBs.

The weighted average lending rate on outstanding rupee loans of scheduled commercial banks declined marginally to 8.96% in August 2026 from 8.97% in July 2026, the RBI's September 2026 lending and deposit rates release states.

Liquidity and the short end

The RBI said that on a review of current and evolving liquidity conditions it will conduct a four-day variable rate reverse repo auction under the liquidity adjustment facility on 1 October 2026 for a notified amount of ₹2,00,000 crore, with reversal on 5 October 2026.

At the Treasury bill auctions, the cut-off yield on the 91-day bill was 5.5199% on a notified amount of ₹9,000 crore, on the 182-day bill 5.9601% on ₹8,000 crore, and on the 364-day bill 6.1798% on ₹7,000 crore. The government announced a sale (re-issue) of government securities for ₹33,000 crore to be auctioned on 1 October 2026, with an underwriting auction the same day.

The backdrop

Consumer price inflation was 2.4% a year in 2025, on World Bank and MoSPI data. GDP growth was 7.6% a year, on a GDP of US$3.96 trillion (World Bank, 2025). Investment was 34.6% of GDP, exports of goods and services 22.3% of GDP and manufacturing 13.5% of GDP.

What to watch

Credit at 18.8% alongside a lending rate that has barely moved — 8.96% from 8.97% on outstanding rupee loans — is the pairing the RBI's own series produce. The central bank publishes both the credit and the rate data and runs the liquidity operations; the 1 October reverse repo auction, with its 5 October reversal, and the Treasury bill cut-offs are where the short end of the curve will next be visible. The broader question, for the Finance Ministry and the banks together, is whether credit growth of that pace is matched by the deposit and capital base needed to sustain it — a comparison the current releases do not settle.

India's score on the Corruption Perceptions Index improved and its Democracy Index position rose, while its press-freedom ranking fell six places, according to the most recent editions of three separate trackers.

What moved

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025, released on 10 February 2026, places India 91st of 182 countries with a score of 39, up five places from 96th and a score of 38 in 2024. India's score remains below the global average of 42. Some trackers still describe the index as covering 180 countries; the 2025 edition covered 182. On the same index India ranks ahead of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh and behind China, at 43, and Bhutan, at 71.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index places India 41st of 167 countries, up five places from 46th in 2022, and classifies it as a 'flawed democracy', tied with Poland. The same series records a peak score of 7.92 in 2014, when India ranked 27th, and a fall to 6.61 in 2020, when it ranked 53rd.

Reporters Without Borders, in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index released on 30 April 2026, places India 157th of 180 countries with a score of 31.96, down six places from 151st in 2025 and inside the organisation's 'very serious' band. RSF cites violence against journalists, concentrated ownership and the use of defamation and national-security law. The Indian government has publicly disputed RSF's methodology and sample size.

The slower measures

The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators for 2025, on a scale from −2.5 to +2.5, put India at −0.15 for voice and accountability, −0.13 for rule of law, −0.28 for control of corruption, −0.17 for regulatory quality, +0.50 for government effectiveness and −0.61 for political stability and absence of violence.

V-Dem's 2025 series, published through Our World in Data, scores India 0.38 of 1 for electoral democracy, 0.26 for liberal democracy and 0.46 for freedom of expression. Its corruption measures run the other way, where higher is worse: political corruption 0.68, public-sector corruption 0.69 and executive corruption 0.69. Judicial checks on government score 0.67 and women's political participation 0.71 — against a lower house in which women hold 13.8% of seats, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

What would have to change

The three rankings move on different evidence. RSF's cited drivers — violence against journalists, ownership concentration, and defamation and national-security law — fall respectively to state police, to media owners, and to the Union government and the courts. The corruption measures reflect the work of the Central Vigilance Commission, the CBI and the Lokpal, alongside state agencies; those are levers held by governments at both levels.

The Democracy Index's 2014 peak and 2020 trough span different administrations, so neither can be pinned on one government. The two 2026 movements were published within three months of each other, and both belong in the same record.

India recorded 1,83,434 road accident deaths in 2025, the most of any country in absolute terms and roughly 11% of the global total, ahead of China and the United States, according to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

Deaths rose 25.5% from 1,46,133 in 2015, while reported crashes rose only 2.4% over the same period — meaning, on the ministry's own reading, that crashes have become markedly deadlier. The ministry's 2023 figures put road accidents at 4,80,583 and persons injured at 4,62,825.

What the ranking measures

The first place is on absolute deaths; the figures cited here do not give a rate per 100,000 people or per registered vehicle, so the position is not directly comparable with smaller countries. The comparison the ministry itself draws is with China and the United States, both of which record fewer deaths.

The divergence between the two series is the more useful number. Between 2015 and 2025, reported crashes grew 2.4% and deaths grew 25.5%. On those figures, the change is not in how often vehicles collide but in what happens when they do — which points to vehicle safety, speeds, road design and post-crash care rather than to traffic volumes alone.

Who holds the levers

Responsibility is split. The Union ministry sets vehicle safety standards and runs the national highway programme and publishes the annual accident series. State governments control licensing, traffic policing and most urban roads, and state transport departments register vehicles. Emergency response and trauma care sit with state health systems, while the National Highways Authority of India handles the national highway network where a large share of the fatal crashes the ministry records occur.

What would have to change

The 25.5% rise in deaths against a 2.4% rise in crashes since 2015 is not a single-year movement and not the product of one administration; the trend runs across a decade and both levels of government. Reducing it requires the ministry's safety standards to reach the vehicle fleet, the states' enforcement to reach behaviour on the road, and the health system to reach the injured in the first hour. The ministry publishes the series annually; the next edition is the first place any change will show.

The 2025 Global Hunger Index places India 102nd of 123 countries with a score of 25.8, in the 'serious' band — up three places from 105th of 127, at 27.3, in 2024. The report, published in October 2025 by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, records child wasting at 18.7%, among the highest in the report, stunting at 32.9% and undernourishment at 12.0%. The Indian government has formally contested the index's methodology. India ranks below every South Asian neighbour except one on the same index.

The Human Development Index published in the Human Development Report 2025, using 2023 data and released on 6 May 2025, places India 130th of 193 countries with a score of 0.685, up four places from 133rd and 0.676 the previous year. India remains in the 'medium human development' band, just below the 0.700 threshold for 'high'. Inequality cuts the score by 30.7%, the steepest discount among India's neighbours on the same measure. China is 78th.

The health series

The World Bank's series, drawn from national and UN sources, put child stunting at 35.5% of under-fives (2020) and undernourishment at 12% of the population (2023). Under-five mortality was 3.6% of children dying before age five (UN IGME, via Our World in Data, 2019) and maternal mortality 80 per 100,000 live births (World Bank, 2023). Life expectancy at birth was 72.2 years (2024) and childhood immunisation covered 94% of children aged 12–23 months (2024).

Out-of-pocket spending was 43.9% of health spending (World Bank and WHO, 2023). India had 0.7 doctors per 1,000 people (2020) and 1.6 hospital beds per 1,000 (2021). The Human Capital Index was 0.49 on a 0–1 scale (World Bank, 2020).

Education and research

Gross enrolment in higher education was 34.4% (UNESCO via World Bank, 2025). Government spending on education was 4.1% of GDP (2022) and research and development 0.6% of GDP (2020), with 259.3 researchers per million people (2020).

What would have to change

Both indices turn on outcomes delivered at state level — nutrition, sanitation, schooling and primary health — while the money and the national programmes are set in Union budgets under the Ministries of Women and Child Development, Health and Family Welfare, and Education. The stunting figure the World Bank reports dates to 2020 and its undernourishment figure to 2023; the wasting figure of 18.7% comes from the 2025 hunger report whose methodology the government disputes. Between the contested index and the older bank series, child wasting is the component the 2025 report flags hardest.

India was the sixth most polluted country by population-weighted PM2.5 among the 143 countries in IQAir's 8th World Air Quality Report, at 48.9 µg/m³ — close to ten times the World Health Organization guideline of 5. That is an improvement on 2024, when India was fifth at 50.6 µg/m³. Delhi remains the world's most polluted capital at 82.2 µg/m³, itself a three-year low on the same measure.

The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy's 2026 Environmental Performance Index places India 176th of 177 countries with a score of 22.46 — second from last, ahead only of Laos — citing air quality, coal dependence and weak biodiversity protection. That figure is contested: the Environment Ministry rejected the 2022 edition of the index outright as methodologically unsound. The same series records India's ten-year change in score as positive, at +7.47, and its trajectory from 141st in 2016.

Where the electricity comes from

Renewables supplied 24.1% of India's electricity generation in 2025 (Ember and the Energy Institute, via Our World in Data), and solar generation was 196 TWh (Energy Institute, via Our World in Data, 2025). CO₂ emissions were 2.17 tonnes per person in 2024, or 3,153.83 million tonnes in total (World Bank, 2024). Forest cover was 24.5% of land area (FAO via World Bank, 2023).

The policy side

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said it had completed the first phase of 'Special Campaign 6' and that the implementation phase begins on 2 October 2026, and separately that it held a plantation drive under the 'Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam' initiative. The Union Environment Ministry is the body that answers on the EPI and holds the air-quality rulebook; coal dependence sits with the Ministry of Coal and generation with the Ministry of Power; vehicular emissions with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. State pollution control boards enforce much of the day-to-day regulation.

What would have to change

At 48.9 µg/m³ the population-weighted annual average is close to ten times the WHO guideline the report cites. Closing that gap requires action on the sources Yale names: coal-fired generation, industrial and transport emissions, and land use — spread across four Union ministries, the states and their pollution boards. On the Yale index itself, the government's methodological objection is on the record, and the same series records a ten-year improvement of +7.47 points. Both readings belong in the same paragraph.