Context

A worldwide ranking of civil, economic and personal freedom, the Human Freedom Index 2020 has been released. India was placed at the 111th spot out of 162 countries. In 2019, India ranked 94 on the index.

About

What is Human Freedom Index?

• Human Freedom Index was published by American think tank Cato Institute and Fraser Institute in Canada.
• The index takes into account 76 indicators of personal, civil, and economic freedoms to rank 162 countries from 2008 to 2018.
• The institutes noted that the world has seen a notable decline in personal freedom since 2008.

Key-findings of the index

• The first three sports have been bagged by New Zealand, Switzerland and Hong Kong.
• The United States and United Kingdom are tied at the 17th spot on the index.
• War-torn Syria ranked the last on the list.
• The report finds a strong, positive relationship between freedom and prosperity, but also finds that there is an unequal distribution of freedom in the world.
• Fifteen percent of the world’s population lives in the freest quartile of countries in the index, while 34 percent lives in the bottom quartile of countries.
• The gap in freedom between the most free and the least free countries has also been increasing since 2008.

India’s position

• Though India slipped down, it has been ranked ahead of China and Bangladesh, which ranked 129 and 139 on the 2020 index respectively. 
• India’s scored
  • Personal freedom:30 out of 10
  • Economic freedom:56 out of 10
• The country’s overall human freedom score was 6.43.

The Global Economic Freedom Index 2020 released in September showed India drop 26 spots from 79 to 105. The World Press Freedom Index, which was released in April, saw India slip two places. India ranked 142 on the index comprising of 180 countries and territories.