From poverty to happiness, here’s how India is ranked in various global indices in 2024

India's performance in global indices in 2024, including poverty, hunger, press freedom, gender gap, happiness, and peace rankings.

The year 2024 has marked the onset of numerous conflicts, leaving the global community grappling with the implications. Citizens across different countries are confronted with challenges such as poverty, hunger, and climate change, all of which play a crucial role in determining their quality of life. As the world approaches the end of the year, with several significant events on the horizon and anticipation building for 2025, we will examine India’s performance in various global indices announced in 2024. From assessments of poverty to measures of happiness, here’s how India ranked.

According to the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2024, approximately 1.1 billion people out of a total of 6.3 billion are experiencing poverty across 112 countries. The report published by the United Nations Development Programme indicates that the poverty rate in India decreased from 55.1 percent in 2005-06 to just over 16.4 percent in 2019-21. Despite this, the five countries with the largest number of people living in poverty are India (234 million), which is medium Human Development Index (HDI), and Pakistan (93 million), Ethiopia (86 million), Nigeria (74 million) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (66 million), all of which have low HDI. Collectively, these five countries represent nearly half (48.1 percent) of the total 1.1 billion poor people.

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More than half of the 1.1 billion people living in poverty are children under the age of 18, totalling 584 million. Globally, 27.9 percent of children are living in poverty, in contrast to 13.5 percent of adults.

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) serves as a major tool used by international humanitarian organizations to measure and monitor hunger levels, with scores derived from indicators of undernourishment and child mortality across 127 countries. In the latest ranking, India has been positioned at 105th place, categorizing it within the “serious” category of the analysis. This places India among 42 countries identified as “serious,” alongside Pakistan and Afghanistan, while neighbouring South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have achieved better GHI scores, qualifying them for the “moderate” category.

According to the 2024 Global Hunger Index, India has a score of 27.3, indicating a serious level of hunger. The GHI score for India is derived from four key indicators: 13.7 percent of the population is undernourished, 35.5 percent of children under five are stunted, 18.7 percent of these children are wasted, and 2.9 percent of children do not survive to their fifth birthday, as highlighted in the report.

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