Times of Better Bharat

The headline numbers

The World Bank's 2025 data put India's gross domestic product at US$3.96 trillion at current prices, with growth of 7.6% a year (World Bank). Per-head measures are far smaller: gross national income per capita on the Atlas method is US$2,760, and GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is 11,748 international dollars (World Bank).

The same 2025 series records an investment rate of 34.6% of GDP, exports of goods and services at 22.3% of GDP, a current account balance of -0.4% of GDP and reserves equal to 7.88 months of imports. Remittances received stand at US$150.7 billion, net foreign direct investment inflows at US$39.1 billion, and the external debt stock at US$716.5 billion (World Bank, 2024).

Two debt numbers, two entities

The International Monetary Fund puts general government gross debt — Centre and states combined, on the definition it uses for debt-sustainability analysis — at 83.4% of GDP in 2026, a figure marked contested, down from a peak near 89% in 2020 (IMF). The Union Budget's central-government figure is about 55.6% for FY2026-27. The two are not contradictory: they cover different entities, and quoting one as the other misstates the position. For an older, narrower measure, the World Bank and IMF recorded central government debt at 46.5% of GDP in 2018.

Regulation as the next lever

At the fifth Kautilya Economic Conclave, Rajiv Gauba called for lighter-touch, risk-proportionate regulation (Press Information Bureau). The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom 2026 places India 132nd of 176 economies with a score of 52.5, down four places on 2025, and the World Bank's regulatory quality indicator for 2025 stands at -0.17 on a scale running from -2.5 to +2.5.

One caution belongs in that debate. The World Bank's Ease of Doing Business index, in which India's final position was 63rd of 190 in 2020, was discontinued in September 2021 after an audit found that leadership had pressured staff to alter the 2018 and 2020 rankings. That 2020 figure is still widely quoted as current. It is six years old and the index no longer exists.

What would have to change

Moving supervision from licensing towards outcomes is the work of the bodies that write the rules — the Finance Ministry, sector regulators and state clearance authorities — and the effect would show up in the regulatory-quality indicators over several years, not one.

The move

The World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index 2025 places India 86th of 143 countries with a score of 0.49 on a 0-1 scale, down seven places on 2024 (World Justice Project). The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators for 2025, which run on a -2.5 to +2.5 scale, put voice and accountability at -0.15, rule of law at -0.13, control of corruption at -0.28 and regulatory quality at -0.17. Government effectiveness is the single positive reading at 0.50; political stability and absence of violence is the weakest at -0.61 (World Bank).

Corruption, measured two ways

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

V-Dem, publishing via Our World in Data, reports political corruption at 0.68, public sector corruption at 0.69 and executive corruption at 0.69 on a 0-1 scale where higher is worse (V-Dem, 2025). The two families of measure rest on different methods and different vintages and should not be read as confirming each other.

Democracy and expression

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index — the 2023 edition, the most recent in this set — places India 41st of 167, up five places on 2022, in its 'flawed democracy' category and tied with Poland. India's score peaked at 7.92 in 2014, when it ranked 27th, and fell to 6.61 in 2020, when it ranked 53rd (EIU). V-Dem puts electoral democracy at 0.38 and liberal democracy at 0.26, freedom of expression at 0.46 and judicial checks on government at 0.67, all on 0-1 scales. Freedom House scores political rights at 31 of 40 and civil liberties at 31 of 60.

Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index 2026, 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; the dispute does not change the published number, and the number does not settle the dispute.

On detention, the World Prison Brief records a prison population rate of 37 per 100,000 people (2023) and pre-trial detainees at 72.6% of the total prison population, with a reference date of 31 December 2024 and the National Crime Records Bureau as its source.

What would have to change

These composites respond to institutional design and enforcement over years, not quarters. The levers are divided: court process and legal reform sit with the Union Law Ministry and the judiciary, detention and policing with the Home Ministry and state police and prison administrations, and broadcast and press regulation with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

What the release says

A Press Information Bureau release says reforms intended to empower cotton farmers, increase transparency and strengthen India's cotton value chain will be at the centre of policy (PIB). The release carries no targets, no figures for cotton yield, procurement or price realisation, and no timeline against which delivery could be checked.

Where the value chain stands

The World Bank's 2025 estimate of farm output per worker is US$2,159.15, expressed in constant 2015 dollars — a base-year series, so it should not be read as a current cash income. Cereal yield, the broadest productivity proxy available, was 3,632.5 kilograms per hectare in 2024 (World Bank).

Labour-force participation is 55.7% of the population aged 15 and over, and 32.4% among women (World Bank and ILO, 2025). Manufacturing accounts for 13.5% of GDP and exports of goods and services for 22.3% of GDP (World Bank, 2025). India's share of world merchandise exports was 1.8% in 2024 (UNCTAD, via Our World in Data).

Water is the constraint that sits under any yield programme: 66.5% of available freshwater was withdrawn in 2022 (FAO, via the World Bank), a level at which further irrigation expansion competes with existing users.

Where the leverage sits

Cotton is a shared subject rather than a single-ministry one. Input supply, extension and price policy run through the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and state agriculture departments; procurement and the downstream chain — ginning, spinning, exports — run through the Ministry of Textiles and the Cotton Corporation of India; irrigation and watershed works sit with the Ministry of Jal Shakti and state irrigation departments.

What would have to change

Two things would make the reform auditable. First, publication of district-level cotton data — area, yield, procurement volumes and prices paid against the minimum support price — by the Ministry of Textiles and the Ministry of Agriculture. Second, an extension system that reaches farmers at scale, which is a state subject and therefore varies by state.

The release does not say which of these is planned. Until the numbers are published, the direction of the value chain cannot be established from the announcement itself.

The announcement

Three lakh completed houses for Andhra Pradesh were announced at Burripalem by Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu (Press Information Bureau). The release gives no cost, no completion schedule and no split between rural and urban units.

Where the delivery gap is

The World Bank's latest figures show access to electricity reaching 99.9% of the population (2024), access to clean cooking fuel at 76.7% (2023), safely managed drinking water at 76.4% and safely managed sanitation at 62.8% (2024). The multidimensional poverty index compiled by UNDP and OPHI stands at 0.069, a headcount of 16.4% — 231,828 thousand people in the survey year, based on NFHS-5.

Extreme poverty below US$2.15 a day was 5.3% in 2022, and 23.9% of the population lived below US$3.65 a day, with a Gini index of 25.5 (World Bank). The gaps that remain are concentrated in exactly the services that pucca housing is meant to bring with it.

Financing the water and sanitation gap

NABKisan listed India's first WASH-based social bond, raising ₹180 crore (Press Information Bureau) — a small sum against the national gap, but the first of its structure.

The other infrastructure ledger

Road accident deaths were 1,83,434 in 2025, the largest absolute number of any country and roughly 11% of the global total, ahead of China and the United States. Deaths have risen 25.5% from 1,46,133 in 2015 while reported crashes rose only 2.4%, meaning crashes have become markedly deadlier. The ministry recorded 4,80,583 accidents and 4,62,825 injuries in 2023 (Ministry of Road Transport and Highways).

What would have to change

Housing delivery is executed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and state housing boards, with water and sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti and municipal bodies — the last of which decides whether a completed house is actually connected. Road deaths sit with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on vehicle standards and national highway design, and with state transport departments and municipal bodies on enforcement and urban road geometry. Neither the housing nor the road figures move on announcement; both move on maintenance and enforcement budgets, which are annual and visible.

The push

A Press Information Bureau release sets out India's emerging supercomputing ecosystem (PIB). The release describes direction rather than capacity; the constraints appear in the connectivity and research numbers around it. Individuals using the internet are 70% of the population, mobile subscriptions 79.4 per 100 people, and fixed broadband 3.2 per 100 people (World Bank and ITU, 2024-2025).

Compute, indexed

The Global AI Index, published in its 2025 edition by The Observer after Tortoise Media's 2019-2024 editions, places India 17th of 93 economies with a score of 21 on a scale where the top-scoring country is 100 — down seven places (The Observer). Twelve countries were added to that edition and indicators were reweighted, so part of the fall reflects a changed field rather than performance alone. The Government AI Readiness Index 2025 places India 27th of 195 with 66.55 out of 100, up 19 places, on a new six-pillar framework; the first December 2025 release printed India 21st using incorrect data, and corrected rankings were issued in January 2026 and re-issued in May 2026 (Oxford Insights).

The Global Innovation Index 2025 ranks India 38th of 139, up one place and up ten since 2020, at 52nd on innovation inputs and 32nd on outputs, and first among lower-middle-income economies (WIPO). The Network Readiness Index places it 45th of 127, up four (Portulans Institute, 2025; six economies were dropped for data coverage), and the UN's E-Government Development Index 97th of 193, up eight on 2022 (UN DESA). The ITU's Global Cybersecurity Index 2024 publishes no ranks; India sits in Tier 1, 'role-modelling', one of 46 Tier 1 countries among 194 assessed, scoring 98.49 out of 100 (ITU).

The inputs that decide it

Research and development spending was 0.6% of GDP in 2020, with 259.3 researchers per million people, and 26,267 patent applications by residents were filed in 2021 (UNESCO and WIPO, via the World Bank). Among consumer measures, India ranked 7th of 237 markets on mobile data price at US$0.16 per gigabyte (Cable.co.uk, 2023 edition, the latest), while mobile internet speed ranked 32nd of 102 at 128.2 Mbps, down seven places year on year (Ookla, June-August 2026).

What would have to change

Machine capacity is commissioned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Science and Technology. The research spending ratio that ultimately determines how much of that capacity is used by Indian institutions runs through the same ministries, the Ministry of Education, and industry — whose share is included in the 0.6% figure and which remains the largest single gap against the economies ranked above India on the innovation indices.

The release

The Environment Minister released two male Great Indian Bustards into wild areas of the Desert National Park in Jaisalmer (Press Information Bureau). Species recovery at this scale is measured in years, and the release gives no population target.

Where the indices stand

The Environmental Performance Index 2026, compiled by Yale's Center for Environmental Law and Policy, places India 176th of 177 countries with a score of 22.46 — a contested ranking, second from last and ahead only of Laos (Yale). 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 trajectory recorded in the series runs from 141st in 2016. The Environment Ministry rejected the 2022 edition outright as methodologically unsound.

Air quality is the driver. IQAir's eighth World Air Quality Report places India 6th 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 5th at 50.6. Delhi remains the world's most polluted capital at 82.2 µg/m³, itself a three-year low.

On decarbonisation, renewables supplied 24.1% of electricity generation and solar generation reached 196 TWh (Ember and 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). The Climate Change Performance Index 2026 ranks India 23rd of 67 with a score of 61.31, down 13 places, moving it from 'high' to 'medium' performer; the index leaves ranks 1-3 empty by design (Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute and Climate Action Network International).

Land and water tell the same mixed story. Forest cover is 24.5% of land area (FAO, 2023) while tree cover loss runs at 1,25,678 hectares a year (Global Forest Watch, via Our World in Data, 2024). Water stress stands at 66.5% of available freshwater withdrawn (FAO, via the World Bank, 2022). On adaptation readiness, the ND-GAIN index places India 112th of 190 with a score of 44.4, up two (University of Notre Dame).

What would have to change

Air quality standards and species recovery programmes sit with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, with enforcement by state pollution control boards and state forest departments. Yale names coal dependence as a factor, which places part of the answer with the Ministry of Power. The measures that would move these indices — continuous monitoring and published compliance data — are administrative decisions within the ministry's own remit.