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The World Happiness Report 2021 was released by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. This is the ninth World Happiness Report. HISTORY The first eight reports were produced by the founding trio of co-editors assembled in Thimphu in July 2011, pursuant to the Bhutanese Resolution passed by the General Assembly in June 2011. The assembly had invited national governments to "give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development." The first World Happiness Report was released in 2012. Although the World Happiness Reports are based on a wide variety of data, the most important source has always been the Gallup World Poll.  2021 REPORT The World Happiness Report 2021 focuses on the effects of Covid-19 and how people all over the world have fared. Theme: Life under COVID-19. Finland once again is the world's happiest country.  People in war-torn Afghanistan are the most unhappy with their l...

The Freedom in the World 2021 report has downgraded India’s status from ‘Free’ to ‘Partly Free’. It pointed to a decline in global democracy over the last 15 years. The report said that nearly 75% of the world’s population lived in a country that faced deterioration over the last year. The most free countries in the world, with a score of 100, are Finland, Norway and Sweden. The least free with a score of 1 are Tibet and Syria.  The report is published by US based human rights watchdog Freedom House. India’s score was 67, a drop from 71/100 from last year 

India’s rank has slipped six places to 86th among 180 countries in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released by Transparency International. India was ranked 80th out of 180 countries in 2019.  Transparency International is an international non -governmental organisation founded in 1993 based in Berlin, Germany. The top countries on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) are Denmark and New Zealand, with scores of 88. South Sudan and Somalia are the bottom Countries with scores of 12 each. In 2020, India's score is 40 (41 in 2019).

India slipped two places to 53rd position in the 2020 Democracy Index's global ranking. Its score has also fallen from 6.9 to 6.61. The index is released by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The primary reason for the fall was the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that came into being in January 2020. India has been categorized as a ‘flawed democracy’ in the index.  GLOBAL   Out of 167 countries, the Democracy Index classifies 23 countries as full democracies, 52 as flawed democracies, 35 as hybrid regimes and 57 as authoritarian regimes. Norway topped The Economist Intelligence Unit's latest Democracy Index report. Taiwan attained “full democracy” status for the first time. North Korea was ranked last at 167th position.

The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople. 2020 INDEX The 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) was released by Transparency International.  It revealed that persistent corruption is undermining health care systems and contributing to democratic backsliding amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Denmark ranked 1st and South Sudan was at the last position.  India’s ranking for 2020 slipped from 80 to 86.  India's score also decreased by a point from 41 in 2019 to 40 in 2020. 

India has been ranked 85th in the most powerful passport report ‘Henley Passport Index 2021’. THE INDEX The Henley Passport Index is the original ranking of all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. It was created by Dr. Christian H. Kaelin (chairman of Henley & Partners). The ranking is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). It was launched in 2006 and includes 199 different passports. RANKINGS Japan continues to hold the number one position on the index, with passport holders able to access 191 destinations around the world visa-free. Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be the countries with the worst passport to hold with a passport score of 29, 28 and 26 respectively. India ranks 85th, with a visa-free score of 58. The Indian passport ranked higher in both 2020 (84th)

India ranked 131 among 189 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI) for 2019. It slipped two places from the previous year, according to the Human Development Report (HDR) 2020. The report was released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Norway topped the index, followed by Ireland and Switzerland. HDI FACTS The first HDR was launched in 1990 by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. HDI measures average achievement on three basic aspects of human development, life expectancy, education, and per capita income.  For the first time, the United Nations Development Programme introduced a new metric to reflect the impact caused by each country’s per-capita carbon emissions and its material footprint, which measures the amount of fossil fuels, metals and other resources used to make the goods and services it consumes. INDIA  India’s gross national income (GNI) per capita on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP), too, fel...