Soumitra Dutta releases the Network Readiness Index 2025; India jumps 4 places 

The Portulans Institute, co-founded by renowned academic Soumitra Dutta, released its Network Readiness Index (NRI) 2025 at the World Governments Summit, held in Dubai, in Feb 2026. 

What the NRI asks is this: Can your country use digital technology to create economic and social value? Here’s a more technical yet succinct explanation. “The NRI serves as a vital framework for evaluating a country's preparedness to adopt digital technologies (Li et al., 2025). It assesses various components including infrastructure, regulatory environment, human capital, and innovation capacity. These pillars have been extensively refined by scholars who aim to create a comprehensive understanding of national readiness for digital transformation.”

A country that performed well in the latest report of NRI was India, which jumped four places and which was ranked 45th. Know what’s really impressive? India has topped four categories: Telecom investment, AI scientific publications, ICT services exports, and E-commerce legislation.

It’s worth mentioning a few facts about India’s incredible telecom story. The Department of Telecommunications launched National Broadband Mission 2.0 in Jan 2025. The result? 5G is now in 99.9% of districts; and more than 5 lakh base transceiver stations were installed. In other achievements: India now has 120 crore+ mobile users, and highest data usage with lowest data costs globally!

In the NRI 2025, India got second place in: Fiber-to-the-home subscriptions, Mobile broadband traffic, and International internet bandwidth. India ranks 2nd among lower-middle-income countries. In Asia-Pacific, the country is 11th, alongside Singapore and South Korea as the region's standouts. The report also says India is performing well above what its income level would predict.

So which were the other standout performers? “Wealth is no longer the only predictor of success. Countries like China (24th), Viet Nam (40th), India (45th), and the Philippines (66th) are punching far above their weight class, proving that national policy and institutional capacity can leapfrog traditional economic barriers,” wrote Soumitra Dutta, whose current residence is the US, in a LinkedIn post.