Times of Better Bharat

Growth and prices

India's GDP was US$3.96 trillion in 2025 and grew 7.6% a year, both on World Bank figures. GNI per capita on the Atlas method was US$2,760, and GDP per capita at purchasing-power parity was 11,748 international dollars (World Bank, 2025). Consumer price inflation was 2.4% a year (World Bank / MoSPI, 2025).

Jobs, investment and trade

Unemployment was 4.2% of the labour force (World Bank / ILO, 2025). Labour-force participation was 55.7% of the population aged 15 and above; for women it was 32.4% (World Bank / ILO, 2025). Investment was 34.6% of GDP, manufacturing 13.5% and exports of goods and services 22.3% (World Bank, 2025). Cereal yield was 3,632.5 kg per hectare (World Bank, 2024).

External accounts

Net FDI inflows were US$39.1 billion and remittances received US$150.7 billion (World Bank, 2025). External debt stock was US$716.5 billion (World Bank, 2024), and reserves covered 7.88 months of imports (World Bank, 2025).

Debt and tax

The IMF puts general government gross debt — Centre and states combined, on the definition used for debt-sustainability analysis — at 83.4% of GDP in 2026, down from a peak near 89% in 2020. That figure is contested in our data file. It does not contradict the Union Budget's central-government figure of about 55.6% for FY2026-27: the two cover different entities. An older World Bank / IMF line put central government debt at 46.5% of GDP in 2018. Tax revenue was 6.9% of GDP (World Bank, 2022).

Poverty and distribution

On 2022 World Bank data, 5.3% of the population lived below US$2.15 a day and 23.9% below US$3.65 a day. The Gini index was 25.5, where 0 denotes perfect equality.

The RBI's weekly statement

The Reserve Bank of India's Weekly Statistical Supplement shows loans and advances to state governments at ₹8,590 crore as on 25 September 2026, against ₹19,427 crore on 18 September 2026 — a weekly fall of ₹10,836 crore — and ₹32,622 crore on 26 September 2025, a yearly fall of ₹24,031 crore. The central government line was nil. The release describes the data as provisional. Separately, the RBI appointed Sudhakar Malli as Executive Director from 1 October 2026; he was previously Chief General Manager-in-Charge of the Department of Supervision and has about three decades of central banking experience.

Corruption: up five places

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, released on 10 February 2026, ranks India 91st of 182 countries with a score of 39, up from 96th and a score of 38 in 2024. India remains below the global average score of 42, ahead of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and behind China (43) and Bhutan (71). The index measures perceptions; some trackers describe it as covering 180 countries, while the 2025 edition covered 182.

Press freedom: down six

Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, released on 30 April 2026, ranks India 157th of 180 with a score of 31.96 — down six places from 151st in 2025 and inside RSF'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.

Democracy

The edition of the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index held in our file, for 2023, ranks India 41st of 167, up five places from 46th in 2022, and classifies it a “flawed democracy”, tied with Poland. The score peaked at 7.92 in 2014, when India was 27th, and fell to 6.61 in 2020, when it was 53rd.

Governance indicators, 2025

On the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators, measured on a −2.5 to +2.5 scale where higher is better: government effectiveness 0.50; rule of law −0.13; voice and accountability −0.15; regulatory quality −0.17; control of corruption −0.28; and political stability and absence of violence −0.61.

V-Dem, 2025

Electoral democracy stands at 0.38 and liberal democracy at 0.26 on a 0–1 scale. Freedom of expression is 0.46 and judicial checks on government 0.67. On the corruption indices, where higher is worse: political corruption 0.68, public sector corruption 0.69 and executive corruption 0.69.

A rank nobody retired

The World Bank's Ease of Doing Business placed India 63rd of 190 in 2020, up 14 places on 2019 — the country's final position before the index was discontinued in September 2021, after an audit found that leadership had pressured staff to alter the 2018 and 2020 rankings. It is still widely quoted as if current. It is six years old, and the index no longer exists.

What would have to change

These are aggregate perception measures, and several are disputed by the government of the day; the RSF ranking and the Global Hunger Index have both been formally contested. The levers are identifiable: defamation and national-security law sit with the Union government, policing and prosecution largely with the states, and case backlogs with the courts. The CPI move from 96th to 91st of 182 shows such indices can shift within a year; the rule-of-law and voice indicators, at −0.13 and −0.15 on a six-point scale, have not.

Innovation

WIPO's Global Innovation Index for 2025 ranks India 38th of 139, up one place on 2024 and ten since 2020. India leads Central and Southern Asia, is the top-performing lower-middle-income economy, and has over-performed relative to its income level for fifteen consecutive years. It is 52nd on innovation inputs and 32nd on outputs, and first in the world for ICT services.

Inputs

Research and development spending was 0.6% of GDP and researchers numbered 259.3 per million people (both World Bank / UNESCO, 2020). Residents filed 26,267 patent applications (World Bank / WIPO, 2021).

Logistics

The World Bank's Logistics Performance Index ranked India 38th of 139 in 2023, up six places from 44th in 2018 and sixteen from 54th in 2014. India was 22nd on international shipments, 47th on infrastructure and 48th on logistics competence, and targets a top-25 place by 2030. A later methodology change means the index no longer ranks countries on a single overall score, so the 2023 placement may not be comparable with what follows it.

Digital and financial reach

70% of the population used the internet (World Bank / ITU, 2025); mobile subscriptions were 79.4 per 100 people and fixed broadband 3.2 per 100 (2024). 89% of adults aged 15 and above had a bank account (World Bank Global Findex, 2024).

Wellbeing and travel

The World Happiness Report 2026, released on 20 March 2026, ranks India 116th of 147 with a score of 4.54, up two places from 118th in 2025 and from 126th in 2024; it measures self-reported life evaluation on a 0–10 ladder through the Gallup World Poll. Finland is first for the ninth year. The Henley Passport Index for February 2026 puts India 75th of 199 with access to 56 destinations, up five places from January after The Gambia was restored — a figure marked contested, because Henley updates through the year and outlets report different snapshots as if annual: 80th with 55 destinations, 78th and 81st were also reported during the year, all of them starting from 85th in 2025.

Human development

The Human Development Report 2025, released on 6 May 2025 using 2023 data, ranks India 130th of 193 with a score of 0.685 — up four places from 133rd and 0.676 a year earlier. India remains classified as medium human development, just below the 0.700 threshold for the high band. Inequality cuts India's score by 30.7%, the steepest discount among its neighbours.

Nutrition

The Global Hunger Index for 2025, released in October 2025, ranks India 102nd of 123 with a score of 25.8, an improvement from 105th of 127 (27.3) in 2024, in the report's “serious” band. It 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 methodology. Older World Bank figures differ: stunting was 35.5% of under-fives in 2020, and undernourishment 12% of the population in 2023.

Health financing and workforce

Out-of-pocket spending accounted for 43.9% of health spending (World Bank / WHO, 2023). There were 0.7 doctors per 1,000 people (2020) and 1.6 hospital beds per 1,000 (2021). Childhood immunisation covered 94% of children aged 12–23 months (2024); maternal mortality was 80 per 100,000 live births (2023); tuberculosis incidence was 187 per 100,000 people (2024). Under-five mortality was 3.6% of children dying before age five (UN IGME, via Our World in Data, 2019). Life expectancy at birth was 72.2 years (2024) and the suicide rate 12.6 per 100,000 (2021). The World Bank's Human Capital Index for India was 0.49 on a 0–1 scale (2020).

Education

Gross enrolment in higher education was 34.4% (World Bank / UNESCO, 2025) and government spending on education was 4.1% of GDP (2022).

The campaign this week

The Department of Health and Family Welfare launched Special Campaign 6, described by the Press Information Bureau as an effort to institutionalise cleanliness, reduce pending cases and strengthen citizen-centric governance. The financing and staffing numbers are what such campaigns operate on: with 43.9% of health spending paid out of pocket, 0.7 doctors and 1.6 beds per 1,000 people, facility-level quality is the binding constraint — and responsibility for it is shared between the Union ministry, which sets national programmes, and state health departments, which run hospitals and primary care.

Roads: first in the world in absolute deaths

India records 1,83,434 road accident deaths a year, more than any other country in absolute terms — roughly 11% of the global total, ahead of China and the United States (Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, 2025). The trajectory matters more than the position: deaths rose 25.5% from 1,46,133 in 2015, while reported crashes rose only 2.4%, meaning crashes have become markedly deadlier. The ministry's 2023 figures record 4,80,583 accidents and 4,62,825 people injured.

Crime against women

The National Crime Records Bureau recorded 66.4 cases per lakh women in 2022 — 4,45,256 cases, about 51 FIRs an hour. That figure is marked contested in our data file. Cruelty by a husband or his relatives accounts for 31.4% of the total, kidnapping and abduction 19.2%, assault with intent to outrage modesty 18.7% and rape 7.1%. Delhi's rate was 144.4, more than double the national figure.

Crime against children

The NCRB recorded 39.9 cases per lakh children in 2023 — 1,77,335 cases, up 9.2% on 2022, and also marked contested. Kidnapping and abduction account for 45% of the total and POCSO offences for 38.2%; together, over four-fifths.

Comparable measures

The homicide rate was 2.8 per 100,000 people (UNODC, via Our World in Data, 2022) and the suicide rate 12.6 per 100,000 (World Bank / WHO, 2021).

Representation

Women hold 13.8% of Lok Sabha seats (IPU, via Our World in Data, 2025). V-Dem's women's political participation index for 2025 stands at 0.71 on a 0–1 scale — a measure of participation that sits well above the seat share.

Where the levers are

Road engineering, enforcement and trauma care are split between the Union road transport ministry and state governments, which build and police most roads. Crime statistics are compiled by the NCRB from state police records and are contested; recorded cases measure reporting as much as incidence. A periodic public audit of both datasets, published on the same schedule by the ministries that already publish them, would let the next decade's movement be judged against this one.

Air

IQAir's 2025 World Air Quality Report puts India sixth of 143 countries by population-weighted PM2.5, at 48.9 µg/m³ — close to ten times the WHO guideline of 5 — an improvement on 2024, when India was fifth at 50.6. Delhi remains the world's most polluted capital at 82.2 µg/m³, itself a three-year low.

The EPI dispute

Yale's Environmental Performance Index for 2026 ranks India 176th of 177, second from last and ahead only of Laos, with a score of 22.46; the ranking is marked contested in our data file. Yale cites air quality, coal dependence and weak biodiversity protection. India's ten-year change in score is nonetheless positive, at +7.47, and the country was 141st in 2016 — a decade in which the score improved and the rank fell. The Environment Ministry rejected the 2022 edition outright as methodologically unsound.

Energy and emissions

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

Basic services

Electricity reached 99.9% of the population (World Bank, 2024); clean cooking fuel 76.7% (World Bank / WHO, 2023); safely managed drinking water 76.4% (World Bank / WHO-UNICEF, 2024); safely managed sanitation 62.8% (World Bank / WHO-UNICEF, 2024).

The sanitation campaign

The Department of Food and Public Distribution this week concluded the Swachhata Hi Seva 2026 campaign, and South Eastern Coalfields Ltd closed its own programme with a Gandhi Jayanti event, both announced by the Press Information Bureau. The gap the numbers describe is not whether a household has a toilet but whether sanitation is safely managed, at 62.8% of the population — the share where waste is contained and treated along the whole chain. Municipalities and panchayats deliver that; the Union government sets the standards and the funding envelopes they work within.