Times of Better Bharat

Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan delivered the inaugural address at the fifth Kautilya Economic Conclave in New Delhi, the Press Information Bureau said, in a release that carries no projections of its own.

The backdrop against which the conference opens is set out in published data. India's GDP was US$3.96 trillion in 2025, growing at 7.6% a year, on World Bank figures. GNI per capita on the Atlas method was US$2,760, and GDP per capita at purchasing power parity 11,748 international dollars. Consumer price inflation ran at 2.4% (World Bank/MoSPI) and unemployment at 4.2% of the labour force (World Bank/ILO).

A debt figure that needs a footnote

The IMF's 2026 estimate of general government gross debt is 83.4% of GDP [CONTESTED] — the Centre and the states combined, on the definition the Fund uses for debt-sustainability analysis, and down from a peak near 89% in 2020. It circulates alongside a much smaller number: the Union Budget's central-government figure of about 55.6% for FY2026-27. The two cover different entities and are not contradictory. Treating either as though it were the other is where much public argument goes wrong.

The contested marker matters here. A general-government aggregate rests on assumptions about state borrowing and on what sits outside the budget, and different analysts reach different totals. The last central-government debt figure in the World Bank/IMF series cited here is 46.5% of GDP for 2018 — eight years old, and no guide to the present.

The structural figures that have not moved

Investment is 34.6% of GDP, exports of goods and services 22.3% of GDP and manufacturing 13.5% of GDP (World Bank, 2025). Tax revenue was 6.9% of GDP in 2022, the most recent figure in that series. Net FDI inflows were US$39.1 billion in 2025, remittances received US$150.7 billion, external debt US$716.5 billion in 2024 and reserves 7.88 months of imports.

Tax revenue at 6.9% of GDP is the binding constraint on what any government can spend on roads, schools or health without borrowing more. Widening it is a matter of tax administration and base; the Union Finance Ministry, state finance departments and the budget process hold that lever. The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators for 2025 put government effectiveness at 0.50 and regulatory quality at -0.17 on the −2.5 to +2.5 scale, both published by the World Bank.

The conclave's agenda is not in the release. The numbers above are.

Harivansh led the Indian parliamentary delegation at the 153rd Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly in Tanzania, the Press Information Bureau said. The IPU is also the body whose data record how many women sit in the chamber the delegation represents.

The representation figures

Women hold 13.8% of lower-chamber seats in India, on IPU data compiled via Our World in Data for 2025 — about one seat in seven. V-Dem's women's political participation index, which measures participation beyond seats held, scores India 0.71 on a 0–1 scale in 2025, where higher is better; that is a comparatively strong reading next to the seat share.

The labour picture bears on who can stand for office. World Bank and ILO data for 2025 put women's labour-force participation at 32.4% of women aged 15 and over, against an overall participation rate of 55.7% of the population aged 15 and over.

The wider democracy measures

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index placed India 41st of 167 countries in its 2023 edition, up five places on 2022, classified a 'flawed democracy' and tied with Poland. The same series records India's score peaking at 7.92 in 2014, when it ranked 27th, and falling to 6.61 in 2020, when it ranked 53rd.

V-Dem, via Our World in Data, scores India at 0.38 on its electoral democracy index and 0.26 on liberal democracy in 2025, both on a 0–1 scale, and 0.46 on freedom of expression. The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators for 2025 put voice and accountability at -0.15 on the −2.5 to +2.5 scale.

These measures use different methods and different samples, and each should be read with the field it was ranked against. Direction also varies by series and by period, which is why single-year movements should not be over-read.

What would move the seat share

Women's representation in the lower house is decided by party nominations and by electoral law: political parties choose candidates, and Parliament sets the rules. The IPU figure is the one to watch, and at 13.8% it has a long way to go.

Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah addressed a Goupalak Sammelan in Bhopal and inaugurated a state-level exhibition on the new criminal codes, the Press Information Bureau said. The codes' effect will be judged, among other things, against recorded-crime data.

What is recorded

The National Crime Records Bureau's 2022 figures record 66.4 cases of crime against women per lakh women [CONTESTED] — 4,45,256 cases, or about 51 FIRs an hour. 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.

The NCRB's 2023 figures for crime against children were 39.9 cases per lakh children [CONTESTED], 1,77,335 cases, up 9.2% on 2022, with kidnapping and abduction at 45% and POCSO offences at 38.2% — together more than four fifths of the total.

Both sets are marked contested, and the caution is not technical. Recorded-crime counts measure reporting and registration as much as they measure offending: a rise can mean more crime, or more willingness to file. Comparing one year with the next, or one state with another, on these numbers alone invites error.

The governance measures

The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators for 2025 put rule of law at -0.13 and control of corruption at -0.28 on a −2.5 to +2.5 scale, with government effectiveness at 0.50. V-Dem, via Our World in Data, scores judicial checks on government at 0.67 on a 0–1 scale in 2025, where higher is better. The UNODC's homicide rate for India, for 2022, is 2.8 per 100,000 people.

What would have to change

Criminal codes change definitions and procedure. Whether they change outcomes depends on registration discipline, investigation capacity and prosecution speed — the Home Ministry, which publishes the NCRB data and frames the codes, and state police forces, which register and investigate, are the bodies that decide it. The figures above are the baseline against which any claim of improvement should be tested, and both the dispute over them and the years they cover should be stated whenever they are quoted.

More than 1,850 gram panchayats across rural India held 'Jal Arpan' programmes — community-ownership exercises for rural water supply systems under Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 — as part of special gram sabhas convened on Gandhi Jayanti, the Press Information Bureau said. Separately, the Union Jal Shakti Minister led a special gram sabha event on Swachh Bharat Diwas 2026, and DARE and ICAR began a cleanliness campaign that included honours for Safai Mitras.

Where coverage stands

On World Bank and WHO-UNICEF figures for 2024, 76.4% of the population had safely managed drinking water and 62.8% safely managed sanitation — meaning 23.6% and 37.2% respectively did not. Access to clean cooking fuel stood at 76.7% of the population in 2023 and access to electricity at 99.9% in 2024. The vintages differ: these are not a single year's snapshot, and reading them as one overstates how fast anything has moved.

What shows downstream

Under-five mortality, on UN IGME data for 2019, was 3.6% of children dying before age five. Maternal mortality was 80 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, and out-of-pocket spending accounted for 43.9% of health spending in 2023, on World Bank and WHO data.

The Global Hunger Index for 2025, published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, places India 102nd of 123 countries with a score of 25.8, in its 'serious' band — an improvement on 105th of 127 the previous year; the Union government has formally contested the index's methodology. The UNDP's Human Development Index places India 130th of 193 with a score of 0.685, up four places, and notes that inequality cuts the score by 30.7%, the steepest discount among India's neighbours.

Who has to act

Rural water supply and sanitation are delivered by states and panchayats with Union funding, which is why the Jal Arpan model — moving operating responsibility to the village — is the part worth watching. The out-of-pocket share of 43.9% is the number that safely managed water and sanitation would most directly reduce, and maintenance financing rather than construction is where the coverage gap sits. The Union Jal Shakti Ministry, state governments and gram panchayats are the bodies that decide it.

India has demonstrated its first 5.56 km free-space quantum distribution link, the Press Information Bureau said. The release carries no deployment date, cost, partner or performance detail beyond the distance: it is a demonstration, and 5.56 km is the only technical figure attached to it.

The network beneath it

Whatever eventually runs on such a link depends on the country's ordinary digital plumbing. According to World Bank and ITU data, 70% of the population used the internet in 2025; mobile subscriptions stood at 79.4 per 100 people in 2024; and fixed broadband at 3.2 subscriptions per 100 people in the same year. Bank accounts, on the World Bank's Global Findex for 2024, are held by 89% of adults aged 15 and over.

The fixed-broadband figure is the thinnest of the four, and it is the one that decides whether high-bandwidth services reach a fixed endpoint rather than a handset. A quantum link demonstrated over 5.56 km is research infrastructure; the demonstration does not by itself move any of these numbers, and the release offers no date on which it might.

Inputs, outputs, and a fifteen-year pattern

Research and development spending was 0.6% of GDP in 2020, with 259.3 researchers per million people in the same year and 26,267 resident patent applications in 2021, on World Bank and UNESCO figures.

Set against those inputs, the outputs are better than the spending would suggest. WIPO's Global Innovation Index for 2025 places India 38th of 139 economies, up one place on 2024 and ten places on 2020. It is the top-ranked lower-middle-income economy, leads Central and Southern Asia, and has over-performed relative to its income level for fifteen consecutive years. It ranks 52nd on innovation inputs and 32nd on outputs — a gap that is the system's characteristic strength.

Sustaining that means raising the input. Research spending at 0.6% of GDP is a 2020 figure, and the bodies that can change it are the Union government's science departments, state governments and private industry, whose research spending the index weights heavily. The Education Ministry's funding decisions for university research sit in the same chain.

The Union Environment Minister and the Chief Minister of Rajasthan initiated the release of captive-bred Great Indian Bustards into the wild at Desert National Park, Jaisalmer, the Press Information Bureau said — the outcome of ten years of breeding effort. The release begins the test that matters for the species: whether the birds survive outside enclosures.

A last-but-one ranking, and a contested one

The Environmental Performance Index published by Yale's Center for Environmental Law and Policy in 2026 places India 176th of 177 countries assessed, with a score of 22.46 [CONTESTED]. Yale cites air quality, coal dependence and weak biodiversity protection. The index is contested: the Environment Ministry rejected its 2022 edition outright as methodologically unsound, and that dispute has not been resolved. Within Yale's own series the trajectory is mixed rather than flat — India's ten-year change in score is positive, at +7.47, and India stood 141st in 2016.

Air, measured separately

IQAir's 2025 World Air Quality Report, its eighth, ranks India sixth of 143 countries for 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.

Energy and land

Renewable sources supplied 24.1% of electricity generation in 2025, on Ember and Energy Institute data via Our World in Data, with solar generation at 196 TWh. Forest cover was 24.5% of land area in 2023. India's CO₂ emissions were 2.17 tonnes per person and 3,153.83 million tonnes in total in 2024.

The Environment Ministry, which rejected the 2022 index as methodologically unsound, and state governments, which control land use and local enforcement, are the bodies the numbers point to. The bustard release shows the other half of the problem: species recovery is slow, decade-long work, and one release does not reverse a ranking.