India Becomes 4th 'Most Equal' Country In World, Leaves Behind US, China: World Bank Report
There are three countries ahead of India on the Gini Index, which include Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Belarus.
India became the fourth-most equal country globally, effected by the significant decrease in inequality between 2011-12 and 2022-23, as per a World Bank report.
This comes on the back of a sharp decrease in extreme poverty in the country, which dipped from 16.2 per cent in 2011-12 to 2.3 per cent in 2022-23, an official release said, quoting the World Bank data.
The three countries having better Gini Index scores, which is a measure of equality, are the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Belarus – placing India in a much better spot than countries like China, the US, and the UK.
'…India's Gini Index stands at 25.5, making it the fourth most equal country in the world, after the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Belarus," the statement said.
The Gini Index is used to measure how evenly income, wealth, or spending is shared among people or households in a country. The score ranges from 0 to 100. A score of 0 means everyone has the same amount—complete equality. A score of 100 means one person has everything while everyone else has nothing—complete inequality. So, the higher the Gini Index, the more unequal the country is.
While China's index stands at 35.7, the US' score is 41.8.
The Work Bank report consisted of data from 167 countries, in which India was placed in the 'moderately low" inequality category. This group includes countries with Gini scores between 25 and 30. India's score is very close to moving into the 'low inequality" group, indicating that income and wealth are fairly evenly distributed in comparison to many other countries.
The government said that the reduction in inequality took place due to various initiatives and schemes launched during the last decade.
According to the World Bank report, 171 million Indians have been lifted out of extreme poverty over the last decade.
The percentage of people in India living on less than USD 2.15 a day—the global line for extreme poverty until June 2025—dropped significantly from 16.2% in 2011–12 to just 2.3% in 2022–23.
Worldwide, only 30 countries are in the 'moderately low" inequality category. Many of them are European nations with strong welfare systems, such as Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Belgium. This group also includes fast-growing economies like Poland and rich countries like the United Arab Emirates.
The report said that India's progress toward a more equal society can be seen in its Gini Index over the years. The index was 28.8 in 2011 and improved to 25.5 in 2022.
'This steady improvement shows that India has been able to combine economic growth with greater fairness and social equality," the release stated.
The report mentioned that schemes like the PM Jan Dhan Yojana, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), and Stand-Up India have played a key role in helping India move toward greater income equality.
(With PTI inputs)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
5 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Express View: For India, is BRICS worth it?
The 2025 BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ended over the weekend with a wide-ranging declaration on global and regional issues. But few outside the hapless desk officers in various foreign offices around the world and policy wonks in think tanks would want to pore over the 126-paragraph, 47-page, over-16,000-word declaration. With such familiar phrases as 'multipolar world', 'Global South', 'inclusive', 'sustainable' and 'global governance', it will certainly impress the enthusiasts who see BRICS as a powerful instrument to upend the global order. Many in the West do fear BRICS for the same reason. There is no reason to believe that US President Donald Trump would have had the time to read the long declaration, but he has repeated his earlier claim that BRICS is 'anti-American' and threatened to impose additional tariffs on members of the forum. But the hopes and fears of BRICS engineering a global transformation are misplaced. For, the forum is riddled with several contradictions of its own and its grasp has always been larger than its reach. As irony would have it, if anyone is trying to build a 'post-American order', it is Trump. In less than six months, he has overturned many traditional assumptions about US global policies and is seeking to radically overhaul the international system that Washington built after World War II and that was modified by it at the turn of the 1990s. Consider, for example, the BRICS talk about reforming the Bretton Woods system; Trump is doing precisely that by pressing for change at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The BRICS call to save the World Trade Organisation is a sad (and hypocritical) cry in the wilderness with Trump well on his way to demolishing the rule-maker for world commerce. Even more damaging is that leading members of BRICS have been queuing up in Washington to negotiate bilateral deals with Trump holding a gun to their heads. They are not saving the WTO but protecting their own national trade with America by looking for bilateral deals. China has cut a limited deal. Vietnam, another communist country, announced a trade deal of its own. India hopes that its intensive trade negotiations with Trump's Washington in the past few months will bear fruit this week. Equally far-fetched is the idea that members of BRICS can submerge their bilateral differences to collectively blunt American dominance. For India, the economic and security challenges presented by China are much bigger than those posed by American hegemony. Two BRICS states — Saudi Arabia and the UAE — are as worried as Israel and the US about the nuclear weapons programme of a third member, Iran. But here is the rub. Trump's actions to overhaul the global economic, financial, and security order have produced great global churn. The Rio declaration has no answers, only hot air, in response to the Trump challenge. The circumstances that persuaded India to found BRICS and promote it for three decades are no longer present. Yet the political groupthink in Delhi is so entrenched that no questions are asked about the virtue of India investing so much political and diplomatic capital in a forum that does little to serve the country's current interests. With India taking over the chair of BRICS, the time to ask those questions is now.
Hans India
39 minutes ago
- Hans India
Gadkari's remarks call for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat 2047' reality check
It is quite rare for an incumbent Union minister to openly admit that, at times, statistical figures may not always reflect the ground realities. It takes guts for a minister to come up with facts that debunk theories floated by the government in power as regards claims about achievements and 'steady' economic growth. Although, on the face of it, India has this year pipped Japan to emerge as the world's fourth-largest economy in terms of GDP, the fact of the matter is that the country is yet to come out of the shackles of economic inequality. UNDP's latest report on Asia-Pacific Human Development states that the addition of around 40 billionaires has taken their count to 143, while, in these intervening years, 46 million Indians have been pushed to the BPL strata. One must give it to the Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, who, on Saturday, dared to come up with some chilling facts and figures that are in stark contrast to the lofty claims of the NDA government at the Centre, which continues to harp on the 'fastest growing major economy' tag. Their projections appear as if the country is doing 'wonderfully well' across sectors, even as the government remains silent on the darker side of the 'vibrant' economy. Expressing concern over the 'rising' number of poor, and wealth getting concentrated in the hands of a limited number of people, Gadkari was bang on with his call for decentralisation of wealth. While lauding former prime ministers P V Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh for pursuing growth-oriented economic policies, Gadkari cautioned against unchecked centralisation and the imbalances in sectoral contributions to the GDP. Underscoring the need to focus on creating jobs and uplift the rural folk, he noted, 'There is a need for decentralisation of wealth. Agriculture, despite engaging 65-70 per cent of the rural population, contributes only around 12 per cent.' The minister was not being critical but speaking his heart out, while putting things in their right perspective. Disparity exists even among Indian states, many of which are 'prosperous' while in other States, people continue to stare at abject poverty, Notwithstanding the fact that the country's per capita income has risen from $442 to $2,389 in the last 20 years, the reality is that whatever income and wealth that was generated in these two decades has been garnered by a miniscule section of the population (the elite class) while the misery of the poor has turned nightmarish, despite a multitude of government-sponsored welfare schemes. Many economists assert that the disparity has widened since 2017 following the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and lowering of the corporate tax rate. Irrespective of the reasons behind the GST move, one must not forget that this hangs as the 'Sword of Damocles', on the middle class and BPL families. People in the know have always wondered at the growing inequality despite the steady economic growth in the past few years. There is a well-orchestrated demand to introduce wealth tax as a measure to check the existing inequality from getting wider, while duly earmarking the revenue so generated for welfare schemes, education and healthcare. Laws should be so tightly framed and implemented that the rich, unwilling to dole out wealth tax, don't make a beeline to tax havens. Viksit Bharat 2027, anyone?
The Print
an hour ago
- The Print
Shakti Pumps raises Rs 292 cr via QIP
The proceeds will be used to establish a high efficiency solar domestic content requirement (DCR) cell and solar PV modules manufacturing plant in Pithampur, Madhya Pradesh, through subsidiary Shakti Energy Solutions, with a production capacity of 2.20 GW, the company said in a statement. The company issued 31.87 lakh shares to qualified institutional investors at Rs 918 per share, a 4.97 per cent discount to the Sebi floor price of Rs 965.96. New Delhi, Jul 7 (PTI) Solar pumps maker Shakti Pumps (India) Ltd on Monday said it has raised Rs 292.60 crore through Qualified Institutional Placement. The in-house manufacturing of solar DCR cells will enhance backward integration and allow greater control over the entire value chain, thereby benefitting the company. 'This…fundraising underscores the trust our investors have in our business model and growth strategy. We look to leverage these funds to advance our growth initiatives and enhance value for all stakeholders,' Chairman Dinesh Patidar said. Madhya Pradesh-based Shakti Pumps manufactures solar pumps, energy-efficient stainless-steel submersible pumps, pressure booster pumps, pump motors and other products. The company has two manufacturing facilities with a combined capacity of 5,00,000 pumps per year in India. PTI ABI ABI ANU ANU ANU This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
