On its third anniversary, the Narendra Modi government launched a website, Mygov.in, to highlight its achievements. One of the infographics on the site lists India's ranking in various global indices and claims the country has improved in these fields under the Modi government. Let us examine these claims, as verified by Factly.in:
Claim 1: Global Competitiveness
The Global Competitive Index is a yearly index published by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF defines competitiveness as “the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country”. An economy likely to grow faster if it is a competitive economy, the report says. This is India’s best ranking in recent years.
Claim 2: Global Travel & Tourism Competitiveness
The WEF publishes the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report once every two years. According to the WEF, the index does not measure a country’s attractiveness as a tourist destination, but measures the factors that make it attractive to develop business in the travel and tourism industry of individual countries.
Claim 3: World Bank’s Logistics Performance
The Logistics Performance Index is a tool created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics. The index is published once every two years. While India is currently at its highest ranking yet, with the 35th spot on the LPI 2016, it was at the 39th rank in 2007. India’s rank in 2014 was its worst ever performance on this index.
Claim 4: Global Innovation
The Global Innovation Index, co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), measures innovation and helps identify policies that foster innovation. On the 2016 index, India regained its 2013 ranking, after having witnessed a dip in performance under the BJP in 2015, when it was ranked 81st – its worst performance yet.
Claim 5: Corruption Perception
The annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), by Transparency International, ranks countries by their perceived levels of corruption. These levels are determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. Contrary to the government’s claim, India’s rank in 2016 was worse than its rank of 76 in 2015. India has improved its score in 2016, but not ranking.
Claim 6: Global Gender Gap
This is only the second time that India has ranked below 100 since 2006 on the WEF Gender Gap Index, which calculates the gender gap. The country bagged the rank on the basis of its ninth rank in the Political empowerment sub-index. However, India continues to score poorly on sub-indices of Economic Participation & Opportunity, Educational Attainment and Health & Survival.
Claim 7: FDI Confidence
The Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index examines how political, economic, and regulatory changes will likely affect countries’ FDI inflows in the coming years. India’s worst ranking in the recent times was in 2015 (11th), also during the BJP rule. It must be noted that India was in second place, its best ever ranking on this index, under the UPA rule in 2005, 2007 and 2012.
(With inputs from Factly.in)
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