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India gets low ranking in UN human development index

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, July 10

THE United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has placed India at the 115th slot among 162 countries based on the human development index (HDI).

In its Human Development Report (HDR) released here by the Union Parliamentary Affairs and Information Technology Minister, Mr Pramod Mahajan, the UNDP said India, along with China, are among 11 developing countries which are on track to achieve the targ et set by the UN Millennium Summit to cut poverty by half by 2015.

India is placed in the medium human development category along with Mexico (51), Malaysia (56), Thailand (66), Philippines (70) Sri Lanka (81) and Ghana (119).

Although India is home to one of the world's most dynamic technology hubs, it ranks a lowly 63rd out of 72 in the UNDP' index of technological achievement (TAI). The country has the potential, however, to make good use of new technologies to reduce pover ty and unemployment, with a helping hand form the Government.

The report said Bangalore, which sends thousands of software professionals to Silicon Valley, ranked 13th among the 46 top global technology hubs. ``Bangalore is a small enclave in a country where the average adult received only 5.1 years of education, a dult illiteracy is 44 per cent, electricity consumption is half that in China and there are just 28 telephones for every 1,000 people,'' the report said.

In achieving a set of quantified and monitorable goals for development, the picture is bleak, the report said, adding that 93 countries with 62 per cent of the world's population are not on track to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Elev en million children below age five still die every year from preventable causes -- about 30,000 a day.

Similarly, 83 countries with 70 per cent of the world's population, are not on track to halve the share of their citizens without access to safe drinking water. Nearly one billion people still need such access.

Seventy-four countries, with more than one-third of the world's population, are not on track to halve income poverty by 2015 with worldwide there being 1.2 billion people living on less than a dollar a day.

This year's report includes for the first time Technology Advancement Index (TAI) ranking 72 countries in terms of their overall achievement in creating and using technology. Finland ranks foremost, followed by the US, Sweden and Japan.

TAI identified 46 locations as global hubs and put Silicon Valley in the US at perfect 16 points, followed by Boston (US), Stockholm-Kista, Sweden, and Israel which get 15 point each. Bangalore, scoring 13 out of 16 points, is the only Indian city figuri ng in the report.

This year's report, dedicated to the theme, `Making New Technologies Work for Development', underlines major new initiatives to ensure that new technologies address the most pressing needs of the world's poor.

The Indian `Simputer', developed by the Indian Institute of Science and priced at less than $200 finds a special mention in the HDR as an example for potential widening of access to Internet for rural and urban, literate and illiterate communities.

UNDP Resident Representative, Dr Brenda Gael McSweeney, said the report cites the urgent need for stepping up research effort in four major areas -- vaccines for malaria, HIV and tuberculosis; high-yielding pest-resistant and drought-tolerant varieties o f staple foods of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; low-cost computers and wireless connectivity for the poor and low-cost energy systems.

In a short remark at the HDR release function, Dr M.S. Swaminathan emphasised the importance of technology as an ally in the task of economic and gender equity. He said recent advances in biotechnology and space and information technologies were helping to initiate an ``ever-green revolution'' capable of enabling small-farm families to achieve sustainable agricultural development.

The report also highlights the open door policy of rich nations to developing country professionals to the detriment of the home countries. For instance, about one lakh Indian professionals, primarily in the IT sector, are expected to accept new visas re cently issued by the US.

The average total costs to India of providing a university education to one of these professionals is about $15,000 to $20,000 which meant India is losing as much as $2 billion as a result of this emigration.

Stating that these Diaspora could be a valuable resource for the countries from which they originate, the report notes that contributions from Indians in Silicon Valley and other technology hubs have helped raise the endowments of some of India's univers ities.

Many Indian-launched firms who have ``front offices'' in the US have opened manufacturing plants back home and are making increasing investments in hi-tech training for local workers. The report suggests that to further recoup their education costs, deve loping countries might follow the US model, where individuals are taxed on the basis of nationality, not residence.

Alternatively, each university student could be required to take out a loan provided by the State that would have to be eventually repaid if the student left the country.