Times of Better Bharat

The call

Dr Jitendra Singh called on industry to accelerate the commercialisation of Indian innovations and to expand capabilities for strategic sovereignty by 2047, the Press Information Bureau said.

The index

WIPO's Global Innovation Index 2025 ranked India 38th of 139 economies, up one place on 2024 and ten places since 2020. Within the same table 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 ranks 52nd on innovation inputs and 32nd on outputs, and first in the world for ICT services.

The inputs behind the outputs

The dataset behind the pipeline is thinner, and older, than the headline rank. Research and development spending was 0.6% of GDP in 2020, the latest year in the World Bank series drawn from UNESCO. Researchers numbered 259.3 per million people in 2020. Patent applications by residents were 63,217 in 2024, and scientific and technical articles published ran at 2,28,174 a year in 2023.

Feeding the top of that pipeline: gross enrolment in higher education was 34.4% in 2025, and government spending on education was 4.1% of GDP in 2022. Each figure is reported for the year stated; no more recent value for the same indicator appears in the data.

The split that matters

WIPO's own breakdown puts India 32nd of 139 for innovation outputs against 52nd for inputs, meaning the system converts research into products and services more effectively than it produces the research base. That is the gap a commercialisation push has to close, and the constraint is visible in the R&D and researcher counts rather than in the ranking itself.

What would have to change

Raising research intensity requires larger budgets from government laboratories and universities and from private firms, which set their own spending. The public half sits with the science and education ministries at the Centre and with state governments that fund universities; the private half sits with company boards. The measure that would register the change is the R&D share of GDP, last reported for 2020 at 0.6%.

The exercise and the visit

The Defence Minister addressed participants of Exercise Tarang Shakti 2026 in Jodhpur, laying emphasis on self-reliance in the defence sector and on international cooperation, according to the Press Information Bureau. In a separate release, the PIB said the Defence Secretary will visit Cyprus and Greece from 12 to 15 October 2026.

What the published figures show

India's military expenditure was 2.3% of GDP in 2025, on SIPRI data carried by the World Bank. Arms imports over the same year were recorded at 2,86,30,00,000 on SIPRI's trend-indicator value, the volume measure SIPRI uses for major conventional weapons transfers.

The two figures measure different things, and that difference is the self-reliance argument in one line: one counts what India spends, the other counts how much hardware is bought from abroad. Neither is a rupee or dollar value of contracts.

Peace and terrorism measures

The Institute for Economics & Peace placed India 127th of 163 countries on its Global Peace Index 2026 with a score of 2.41, on a scale where 1 is the most peaceful and 5 the least — a fall of 12 places from the 2025 edition. On the same institute's Global Terrorism Index 2026, India ranked 13th of 163 with 6.43 on a 0-10 scale where a higher score means a greater impact of terrorism, one place worse than the previous edition.

Where the record runs the other way

Among 120 contributors of uniformed personnel to United Nations peacekeeping, India ranked third as of 28 February 2026, with 4,278 troops, staff officers, military experts on mission and police — up one place from December 2025, according to the UN Department of Peace Operations.

What would have to change

A shift towards domestic production would first show up in the arms-import series, which SIPRI reports annually, and then in the export side of the same dataset. Procurement decisions rest with the Defence Ministry and the services; the industrial response rests with the companies that bid. Until the trend-indicator value for imports falls, the self-reliance case at Jodhpur remains a statement of direction rather than a measurement.

The pitch

At India Mobile Congress 2026, the Union Minister for Communications, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, spoke to the media and called for taking Indian technologies global, the Press Information Bureau said.

The base the pitch rests on

Internet users were 70% of the population in 2025, on World Bank figures drawn from the ITU. Mobile subscriptions stood at 79.4 per 100 people in 2024 and fixed broadband at 3.2 per 100. India ranked seventh of 237 markets on mobile data price, at 0.16 US dollars per gigabyte, in an edition whose plans were gathered between 5 July and 6 September 2023, down two places on the 2022 edition.

Where the lead is clearest

Real-time payments: India ranked first of the 51 markets tracked by ACI Worldwide with GlobalData, at 129 billion transactions in 2023, the year that edition covers. The same report attributes 49% of global real-time transactions to India and says 84% of India's electronic transactions were real-time.

Where the ranking slips

Mobile internet speed averaged 128.2 Mbps over June to August 2026, ranking 32nd of 102, down seven places on the same period a year earlier; Ookla limits mobile results to devices with modern chipsets. On the Global AI Index, India ranked 17th of 93, down seven places on 2024 — a sixth edition that added 12 countries and used new and reweighted indicators, published by The Observer in December 2025.

The Network Readiness Index put India 45th of 127, up four, in an edition launched on 4 February 2026 that dropped six economies for data coverage. The UN's E-Government Development Index ranked India 97th of 193 in 2024, up eight on 2022. Oxford Insights' Government AI Readiness Index placed India 27th of 195, up 19 on 2024; the first release of that edition printed India 21st on incorrect data, corrected in a later version. The ITU's Global Cybersecurity Index publishes no ranks in its 2024 edition; India sits in the Tier 1 'role-modelling' band at 98.49 out of 100, one of 46 Tier 1 countries among 194 assessed.

What would have to change

The fixed-broadband figure, 3.2 subscriptions per 100 people, is what separates India's mobile-first market from the connectivity profile of the ranking leaders. The levers sit with the communications ministry and the telecom regulator, and with the operators' own capital plans; the indicators that would show movement are the broadband count, the mobile speed figure and the AI and e-government ranks.

The occasion

Vice-President C.P. Radhakrishnan addressed the second convocation of AIIMS Deoghar, the Press Information Bureau said. A convocation measures the output of one institution; the national workforce figures that sit behind it are older.

The stock of care

India had 0.7 doctors per 1,000 people in 2020, the latest year reported by the World Bank from WHO data, and 1.6 hospital beds per 1,000 people in 2021. Out-of-pocket payments accounted for 43.9% of health spending in 2023 — the share households pay directly rather than through insurance or the state.

On the WHO's universal health coverage index, India scored 69 out of 100 in 2023. Maternal mortality stood at 80 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, and tuberculosis incidence at 187 per 100,000 people in 2024. Life expectancy at birth was 72.2 years in 2024.

The parts reported as working

Childhood immunisation reached 94% of children aged 12 to 23 months in 2024, and access to electricity — a precondition for functioning cold chains and diagnostic equipment — was 99.9% of the population in 2024. Both figures are reported for the year stated; the dataset carries single latest values rather than a series, so year-on-year direction cannot be read off it.

What would have to change

The out-of-pocket share, at 43.9%, is the number a new medical college does not by itself move; insurance coverage and public provision do. Health is funded jointly by the Union and the states, and decisions on public health spending, recruitment and retention of clinicians, and bed capacity sit across both. The measures that would register change are the doctors-per-1,000 and beds-per-1,000 counts — 0.7 and 1.6 in the latest years reported — and the out-of-pocket share, which the health ministry and state health departments both influence.

The campaign

MY Bharat-NSS concluded the first month of the Nasha Mukt Yuva Abhiyan with a nationwide 'Yuva Samvad Mela', with more than 1.06 lakh participants taking part, the Press Information Bureau said.

The labour market it feeds

Labour-force participation was 55.7% of the population aged 15 and above in 2025, on World Bank figures drawn from the ILO. For women, the same measure was 32.4%. Unemployment stood at 4.2% of the labour force.

The preparation

The Human Capital Index, the World Bank's measure of the productivity a child born today can expect relative to full education and full health, was 0.49 on a 0-1 scale in 2020. Learning poverty — the share of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a simple text — was 56.1% in 2017, the latest year reported. Adults averaged 7.8 years of schooling in 2020, while a child starting school now can expect 12.95 years, on UNDP figures. Gross enrolment in higher education was 34.4% in 2025, and government spending on education was 4.1% of GDP in 2022.

Poverty measures bear on all of it: the Multidimensional Poverty Index value was 0.069, with a headcount of 16.4% in the survey year used in the 2025 global MPI published by the UNDP and OPHI. The dataset carries one mental-health figure — a suicide rate of 12.6 per 100,000 people in 2021, on WHO data via the World Bank.

The gap campaigns do not close

The distance between 55.7% overall participation and 32.4% for women is the largest single gap in the labour figures. Counselling and de-addiction drives reach participants — more than 1.06 lakh in a month, as reported — but the indicators that decide whether those participants find work are schooling, skilling and the demand for labour.

What would have to change

Education and skilling budgets are shared between the Union and the states, and school outcomes are delivered mostly at state level; hiring decisions sit with firms. The measures that would show movement are the participation rates, 55.7% and 32.4%, and the Human Capital Index at 0.49. Each is reported for the year stated in its source.

The review

A second regional review conference on the implementation of the Forest Rights Act was held in Kolkata, the Press Information Bureau said. The Act governs who holds rights over forest land and who manages it, which makes the land figures the relevant test.

The land

Forest cover was 24.4% of India's land area in 2024, on World Bank figures drawn from the FAO. Tree cover loss ran at 1,25,678 hectares a year in 2024, according to Global Forest Watch data published through Our World in Data. Water stress — freshwater withdrawn as a share of available freshwater — stood at 66.5% in 2022, on FAO data carried by the World Bank.

The scorecards

Yale's Environmental Performance Index 2026 ranked India 176th of 177 countries with a score of 22.46, second from last and ahead only of Laos. That figure is [CONTESTED]: the index cites air quality, coal dependence and weak biodiversity protection, and India's ten-year change in score is nonetheless positive, at +7.47. India ranked 141st in the 2016 edition. The Environment Ministry rejected the 2022 edition outright as methodologically unsound, so the 2026 result should be read as disputed rather than settled.

Air quality, separately: India ranked sixth of 143 countries on population-weighted PM2.5 at 48.9 µg/m³ in 2025, against a WHO guideline of 5 — an improvement on 2024, when it 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, according to IQAir.

On the Climate Change Performance Index 2026, India ranked 23rd of 67, scoring 61.31 out of 100 and falling 13 places on 2025, moving from 'high' to 'medium' performer; the index leaves its top three places empty by design. On the ND-GAIN Country Index, India ranked 112th of 190 with 44.4 out of 100, up two places on 2023.

What is moving the other way

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

What would have to change

Implementation of forest rights determines who is compensated, who consents and who is responsible for the land — which is why the review conference matters more than an index movement of a few places. The relevant bodies are the Union ministries handling forest and tribal affairs and the state governments that record and settle claims. The published figures that would register progress are forest cover, tree cover loss and water stress.