Human Development

Human Development Report published by UNDP compares countries based on the educational levels of the people, their health status and per capita income. It would be interesting to look at certain relevant data regarding India and its neighbours from Human Development Report 2006. Table 1.6 also shows that though Nepal has half the per capita income of India, yet it is not far behind India in life expectancy and literacy levels. Many improvements have been suggested in calculating HDI and many new components have been added to the Human Development Report but, by pre-fixing Human to Development, it has made it very clear that what is important in development is what is happening to citizens of a country.