A note on social progress index in India

A Note on Social Progress Index in India Abstract: Social progress has become an increasingly critical agenda for leaders in government, business, and civil society. The demand for better lives and greater equality is evident across the world as we see protests and new political movements for racial equity, women’s rights, climate change, gun violence and beyond. As the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world it highlighted our structural weaknesses and our inequities. There has been a growing expectation that it is not just governments who need to play a role in delivering improvements, but that business is also accountable, and must deliver improvements in the lives of people, as well as protecting the environment for us all. This is the social progress imperative. Progress on social issues does not automatically accompany economic development. Rising income usually brings major improvements in areas such as access to clean water, sanitation, literacy, and basic education. But on average, personal security is no better in middle-income countries than in low-income ones and is often worse. And too many people—regardless of income—live without full rights and experience discrimination or even violence based on gender, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Traditional measures of national income, such as GDP per capita, fail to capture the overall progress of societies. In this connection, an attempt is made in this paper to examine the levels of social progress in India.