Question

How many countries are included in HDI ranking?

Answer 1

Hint: Low scores in the HDI is a matter of serious concern but, some concerns have been expressed about the indicators. Along with that the approach selected to calculate ranking and the index values of the states/countries have also been considered.

Complete answer:
Lack of sensitivity to the historical factors like imperialism, neo-imperialism, colonization, and socio-cultural factors like social discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, and caste, human rights violation, social problems like war, crimes, terrorism, and political factors like level of empowerment, nature of the state, forms of the government are some factors that are very crucial in determining the nature of human development. These aspects have special significance in the case of many developing countries and India too. The Planning Commission of India also prepared the Human Development Report for India using the indicators selected by the UNDP. States and the Union Territories were used as the units of analysis. Subsequently, using districts as the units of analysis, state governments also started preparing the state level Human Development Reports.
In terms of the Human Development Index (HDI), India with a population of over $1.20$ billion is ranked 130 among 189 countries of the world. India finds herself grouped with countries showing medium human development with the composite HDI value of $0.640$.

Note: Although, by taking the three indicators as discussed in the book entitled, “Fundamentals of Human Geography”, the final HDI by the Planning Commission of India has been calculated, yet, this report also discussed other indicators like hygiene, economic attainment, social distributive justice, social empowerment, accessibility, and various welfare measures undertaken by the state.