Analyses
37 readings of the data
Each takes one relationship in the dataset and states what it shows and what follows from it. Data vintage 2026-10-19. Dated changes are listed on the updates page.
Comparative
India and Turkey rank lowest of the five peer countries on press freedomOn press freedom India now ranks close to Turkey and far below Brazil and South Africa, both of which improved over the period.A regime comparison of the two periods' averagesThe regime comparison is mechanical. It averages the data and interprets nothing, and it does not flatter either side.India and Hungary are now travelling the same roadHungary's score fell by a similar amount over the same years, and both countries continued to hold competitive elections.Brazil and South Africa improved on press freedom while India fellPress-freedom ranks can recover within a decade. Brazil rose 59 places between 2014 and 2026.
Democracy
India ranks 157th of 180 on press freedomIndia ranks below Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Of its neighbours, only Myanmar (166), Afghanistan (175) and China (178) rank lower in 2026.India's V-Dem score has fallen furthest of its five-country peer groupIndia's 2025 score of 0.260 is its lowest on V-Dem's series since 1950, and slightly below the 0.265 recorded in 1976, during the Emergency.The Democratic Quality Index is at the low of its seriesThe composite fell in 8 of the 12 years after 2014, and each of its four published inputs was worse in 2025 than in 2014.Central agencies arrested senior opposition leaders in 2023 and 2024The arrest of a sitting chief minister in 2024 had no precedent. A yearly count would need a published case list, which does not yet exist.V-Dem score is at 1976-emergency levelsIndia's V-Dem score fell to Emergency-era levels without any formal suspension of civil liberties.
Federalism
Fiscal centralisation peaked in 2020 and has fallen sinceThe NDA's higher average rests on GST and the 2020 borrowing conditions. On the four measured fiscal ratios alone the two eras are close, 0.49 under UPA and 0.45 under NDA.Cesses and surcharges reached a quarter of Union tax revenue in 2020-21Revenue raised as a cess stays with the Union, so the cess share measures how much of the tax take sits outside the pool that states share in.
Growth
Rural household income rose 27% in real terms between 2016-17 and 2021-22Rural incomes grew in real terms between the two surveys, and rural debt grew alongside them.The 2020 GDP contraction was the steepest since independenceThe recovery added jobs, and most of them were self-employment and unpaid family work. The share of workers in formal jobs did not return to its 2017-18 level.GDP growth swung more after 2014, and the pandemic accounts for the differenceThe pandemic year drives the wider spread. Outside it, growth after 2014 was no more volatile than before.
Inequality
The top 1% income share is the highest in a series that begins in 1922Over two decades the top 1% took a larger share of national income. The bottom half lost ground until 2017, gained some of it back by 2020 and has lost part of that again since.The top 1% holds 40% of the country's wealthWithin India's already-high inequality, wealth inequality is meaningfully higher than income inequality.The bottom 50% income share fell to a low in 2017, rose until 2020 and has fallen sinceThe bottom half of India held a smaller share of national income in 2022-23 than in 2004, and a slightly larger one than in 2014.
Jobs
Graduate unemployment is four times the overall rateAggregate labour data masks the structural mismatch facing the educated workforce.Women's labour force participation has risen sharply since 2017-18The headline rate does not show what kind of work the rise is made of.Gig and platform workers nearly tripled between 2011-12 and 2019-20Gig work grew quickly from a small base, and most gig workers have no employer-linked social security.Nine in ten Indian workers are outside regular jobs with social securityRoughly nine in ten Indian workers are outside regular jobs with social security, a larger share than in 2017-18. The survey records no cover for the self-employed and casual workers among them, so it cannot say how many of those have some.Youth unemployment has fallen from 17.8% to 9.9% since 2017-18Young people are about three times as likely to be unemployed as the workforce as a whole, and that ratio has not narrowed as the rate has fallen.Formal job coverage dipped in the pandemic year and has only partly recoveredThe share has not returned to its 2017-18 level in any later year of the survey.Formal job coverage fell by 1.4 points over six years of the labour surveyMore than half of India's regular salaried employees have no social security, a larger share than in 2017-18.
Methodology
What goes into the Statistical Suppression IndexThe index is transparent enough that anyone can replicate it from the public record of statistical events.Why the Democratic Quality Index uses a geometric meanDemocratic quality is multiplicative. One weak pillar undermines the rest.What goes into the Fiscal Centralisation IndexThe four measured ratios come from audited public accounts. The two coded components are judgements, and the method page sets them out.
Statistics
Statistical suppression spiked to a peak and has eased sinceThe acute events have eased and the census is back on a schedule. The shelved GDP back-series and the 2019 merger of the NSSO and the CSO into the NSO still count at full weight.Exam leaks prompted a national law in 2024The 2024 law and the cancellations show that leaks reached national examinations. Measuring how often they happen would need a published list of events.India has not counted its population since 2011By the time the 2027 enumeration is complete, sixteen years will have passed between counts.India's unemployment rate is close to other lower-middle-income countries'The headline unemployment rate is a misleading benchmark for India because of the definition of 'employed'.GDP counts the rent on your flat and nothing for the cookingThe production boundary is a convention. India collects the hours needed to price what falls outside it and does not do so.