Which international reports and indices are current and which are discontinued — and how should I use them in UPSC answers?

One of the most reliable ways to lose marks in a GS2 or GS3 answer is to cite a discontinued index or use rankings that are more than a year old. Examiners who follow current affairs notice both errors. The following is a verified, current reference guide as of May 2026.

Currently Active Indices: Verified Data

1. Human Development Index (HDI)

• Publisher: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
• Frequency: Annual
• India's 2025 ranking (Human Development Report 2025): 130th out of 193 countries
• India's HDI value: 0.685 (medium human development category; threshold for high human development is 0.700)
• Life expectancy: 72 years (2023) — highest recorded since the index began
• Key context: India's HDI has grown by over 53% since 1990, faster than both the global and South Asian averages. However, inequality reduces India's effective HDI by 30.7%, one of the highest inequality adjustments in the region.
• Methodology pillars: Long and healthy life (life expectancy); knowledge (mean and expected years of schooling); a decent standard of living (GNI per capita)

Ready-to-use sentence: 'India's ranking of 130th on the UNDP's Human Development Report 2025, despite being the world's fifth-largest economy, captures the central paradox of growth without commensurate human development — particularly on inequality-adjusted measures.'

2. Global Hunger Index (GHI)

• Publisher: Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe
• Frequency: Annual; typically released in October
• India's 2025 ranking: 102nd out of 123 countries with a score of 25.8 — categorised as 'serious'
• Four methodology pillars: Undernourishment (12.0%); child stunting (32.9%); child wasting (18.7% — second highest in the world); under-five mortality (2.8%)
• Trend: Score improved from 29.3 in 2016 (serious) and 38.1 in 2000 (alarming); progress is real but the child wasting rate remains a critical concern

Ready-to-use sentence: 'India's ranking of 102nd on the Global Hunger Index 2025, with a score of 25.8 in the 'serious' category and a child wasting rate of 18.7% — the second highest globally — underlines that food security and nutritional outcomes must be treated as distinct policy challenges.'

3. World Press Freedom Index

• Publisher: Reporters Without Borders (RSF — Reporters Sans Frontières)
• Frequency: Annual; released around 3 May (World Press Freedom Day)
• India's 2026 ranking (released 30 April 2026): 157th out of 180 countries — down from 151st in 2025
• Context: RSF flags media ownership concentration, government advertising leverage over editorial content, and use of colonial-era laws (sedition, defamation) against journalists as structural concerns in India

Ready-to-use sentence: 'India's ranking of 157th on the 2026 World Press Freedom Index — a six-place drop from the previous year — raises questions about the enabling environment for a free and independent press, a prerequisite for the accountability function that media plays in a democracy.'

4. Global Gender Gap Index

• Publisher: World Economic Forum (WEF)
• Frequency: Annual; typically released mid-year
• India's 2025 ranking: 131st out of 148 countries with an overall gender parity score of 64.4% — a two-place decline from 129th in 2024
• Sub-index performance:
  • Economic Participation and Opportunity: 40.7% — ranked 144th, near the bottom globally
  • Educational Attainment: 97.1% — near parity
  • Health and Survival: near parity
  • Political Empowerment: women's parliamentary representation declined from 14.7% to 13.8%
• Regional context: Bhutan (119th), Nepal (125th), and Sri Lanka (130th) rank better than India; Pakistan ranks 148th (last)

Ready-to-use sentence: 'India ranks 131st on the Global Gender Gap Index 2025, with economic participation at a mere 40.7% — placing it among the five worst-performing countries on that sub-index — illustrating that legal gender equality has not translated into economic empowerment.'

Discontinued — Never Cite as Current

Ease of Doing Business Index (World Bank)

• Status: Discontinued on 16 September 2021 following an independent investigation by WilmerHale that documented data irregularities and manipulation of rankings in favour of certain governments in the 2018 and 2020 editions
• Successor: Business Ready (B-READY) Index — launched by the World Bank in 2024, with the B-READY 2025 report now published
• B-READY methodology: Evaluates business environments across three pillars — Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency — and incorporates broader societal impact considerations absent from the old EoDB framework
• How to cite B-READY: 'The World Bank's Business Ready (B-READY) index, which replaced the discontinued Ease of Doing Business index, assesses India's investment climate across regulatory framework, public services, and operational efficiency.'

Quick Reference Table: Current vs. Discontinued

Citation Rule

Always write the report name and year, not just the index name:

• Correct: 'According to the UNDP's Human Development Report 2025, India ranks 130th on the HDI.'
• Wrong: 'India ranks 130th on the HDI.' (No year, no source attribution — looks like a random number.)