* India went up one notch in the UN Human Development Index, ranking 130 out of 189 countries surveyed * But compare to 1990, India has made massive progress * India has done better than most of the South Asian neighbours

PEOPLE IN BANGLADESH LIVE LONGER THAN IN INDIA

INCOME INEQUALITY MORE IN INDIA THAN PAKISTAN

GIRLS ARE LIKELY TO SPEND MORE YEARS IN SCHOOL THAN BOYS

BY FAR, WOMEN ARE BETTER OFF IN INDIA

India went up one notch in the UN Human Development Index, ranking 130 out of 189 countries surveyed. But if you compare where India stands now with where we were in 1990, we have made massive progress . While Indians had a life expectancy of only 57.9 years in 1990, this has gone up to 68.8 years. Similarly, we are all a lot better off, with a per capita income of $6,353 (in PPP) in 2017 compared with only $1,733 in 1990. That’s a 267% growth. We have done much better than most of our South Asian neighbours. India’s HDI is now at 0.640, higher than the South Asian average of 0.638. In 1990, India’s HDI was 0.427, so we have grown almost 50% against a global average of 22%.India quite lag behind Bangladesh in life expectancy. The latter boasts of a life expectancy of up to 73 years as opposed to 69 years in India.The HDI is an average measure and doesn’t factor in inequality. In 2010, a new measure was introduced, an inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI), which takes into account the inequality in distribution of all three areas. So, if you have more poor people with hardly any access to education and healthcare, the index gets pulled down. While India’s HDI is 0.640, when you account for inequality, the HDI falls to 0.468, a loss of 26.8%. In comparison, Bangladesh has less inequality, but Pakistan is worse.But there is still a long way to go as far as income is concernedThe gender inequality index (GII) reflects gender-based inequalities in three dimensions – reproductive health, empowerment, and economic activity. The GII can be interpreted as the loss in human development due to inequality between female and male achievements.