Every chart, one grid

From 12th to 5th, with two stumbles on the way

India’s slice of world output more than doubled

Two decades, two governments, almost the same pace

“Five times larger” depends on the ruler

Peers

Sixth fastest of 105 countries in income growth per person

Farms still hold 42% of jobs but make 16% of output

Steadier prices and a deep cushion of reserves

Four numbers that depend on who is counting

Fifth by the size of its economy, 143rd by the income of its people

Every measure of poverty points the same way

Hundreds of millions left poverty on every count

Both decades cut poverty fast

Eleven years without an official poverty count

A city dweller spends 70% more than a villager

Out of destitution, not yet out of poverty

Of every 100 Indians, 82 live below $8.30 a day

Figure

Growth did most of the work; the state put a floor underneath

How poor is India now? It depends on the method

Fewer poor, but 102nd of 123 on hunger

India cut child deaths by two-thirds and passed Bangladesh

About 15 million children alive who would have died at 2004 rates

Nearly two of every three child deaths now happen in the first month

Births moved into hospitals and maternal deaths fell by three-quarters

Vaccine coverage rose from under two-thirds to near-universal

Figure

Eight more years of life, but Bangladesh still lives longer

A rural health mission, cash for safe births, a vaccine drive

Where the counts agree, and where they do not

Government still spends just 1.3% of GDP on health

From one in fifty online to seven in ten

Data became 97% cheaper and use rose 300 times

India skipped the fixed line and went straight to the phone

Internet subscriptions nearly quadrupled in ten years

Ahead of South Asia, behind East Asia and Morocco

Women are 14 points behind men online, a wider gap than in any East Asian peer

The world’s second-largest exporter of computer services

The democracy that shuts down the internet most often

Three numbers that need a second look

Reserves grew more than fivefold

Fifth-largest reserve holder in the world

A bigger pile, but fewer months of imports

From sixteenth to fourth among the world’s stock markets

The largest emerging stock market after China

Foreign money arrives in record amounts, and most of it leaves again

The rupee lost nearly half its dollar value; the credit rating rose for the first time in 18 years

Seven milestones and three setbacks in space

Defence exports grew 56 times in twelve years

61 unicorns at home, 156 more founded by Indians abroad

Four numbers that need a second look

From 1.8 crore payments a year to 2,400 crore a month

Four layers, each built on the one below

India makes about half of the world’s real-time payments

Account ownership leapt from below the world average to above it

The poorest and women were reached too

59 crore no-frills accounts, one in four lying idle

Indians are four times as likely as others to leave an account unused

₹52 lakh crore paid straight into accounts

Seventeen years from an ID authority to a world payment system

Three numbers that need a second look

Highway building tripled in pace, then settled near 30 km a day

The national highway network grew by 60%, open expressways 28 times

Central capital spending rose sixfold

The railway network went almost entirely electric

Metro rail in 26 cities instead of 5

Airports more than doubled; air travel grew seven and a half times

Ships now turn around in two days instead of four

Logistics now rated above Vietnam and Indonesia, behind China

Three numbers that need a second look

Solar went from almost nothing to the largest source of new power

A record 45 GW of solar in a single year

Solar power became the cheapest new electricity in India

Third in renewables, ahead of time on its climate pledge

Half the capacity, but just over a quarter of the power

India still leans on coal more than most peers

Low use, low emissions per person

Factories for panels boomed; for cells, much less

Three numbers that need a second look

From most of the population to a small minority

Six hundred million fewer people in the open

The change was in the villages

India’s own household surveys show the same fall

India moved past 28 countries

Basic sanitation more than tripled

Piped water reached four in five rural homes

Dirty water and poor sanitation still kill more Indians than most peers

Two numbers that need a second look

From a third without power to almost none

Forty crore people connected

Rural India caught up with the towns

Most villages were reached before 2014; most homes after

Power now stays on most of the day

Peak demand nearly doubled, and the grid kept up

India moved past 21 countries

Clean cooking spread fast, but a quarter still burn wood or dung

The grid still loses a seventh of its power

Three numbers that need a second look

Two rankings, two different countries

The economy climbed seven places; the citizen barely moved

Behind Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Egypt in income per person

Countries poorer than India live better

India turns income into wellbeing worse than its income predicts

Bangladesh started lower and has drawn level

The top tenth takes almost three-fifths of national income

Inequality cuts India’s human development by almost a third

Three numbers that need a second look

Behind every South Asian neighbour except Pakistan and Afghanistan

More food, fewer hungry, but children still short

Bangladesh and Nepal started worse and are now better

Stunting fell; wasting barely moved

The highest child wasting in the peer panel

Anaemia is rising, not falling

Three numbers that need a second look

Less spent on health than most peers, and shorter lives than several

India’s health share fell as China’s, Nepal’s and Morocco’s rose

The government still spends just 1.3% of GDP on health

Out-of-pocket payments fell, but still cover over two-fifths of the bill

About $350 a year per person on health

Bangladeshis now live 2.7 years longer than Indians

Fewer hospital beds per person than in 2004; wider coverage of basic services

One of the world’s largest public health insurance schemes

Three numbers that need a second look

Fewer than one in four can read a Class 2 story

By Class 8, a third still cannot read a Class 2 text

Enrolment rose fast, but some poorer neighbours enrol more

More than half of 10-year-olds cannot read and understand a simple text

The national survey finds the same gaps

India spends more on schooling than most peers

One in three young people in higher education

Three numbers that need a second look

At India’s income, most countries had more factories and more women at work

Bangladesh and Vietnam built factories; India’s share fell

Nineteen countries moved past India

India makes under 4% of the world’s manufactured goods

Vietnam, with a fourteenth of India’s people, exports almost as many goods

Four in ten Indians still work on farms

Smartphones became one of India’s largest exports

Three numbers that need a second look

Almost every woman got a bank account; most still have no job

Bangladesh’s women went to work; India’s went home, then partly came back

Only twenty countries have a smaller share of women in the labour force

Men work at about the same rate everywhere; women make the difference

One in five working Indian women earns a wage; one in three is an unpaid family helper

Much of the recent rise is unpaid work on family farms

Four times as many women go to college; four in ten young women are not in work or study

Women do more than three times the unpaid housework men do

Fewer girls are being lost before birth, but the gap has not closed

Fewer than one MP in seven is a woman

Three numbers that need a second look

Road deaths almost doubled in twenty years

The world began cutting road deaths; India did not

India’s death rate is middling, but it has not fallen

115 of 183 countries made their roads safer; India stayed where it was

Two in three of the dead were on two wheels or on foot

Speed, and no helmet

National highways are 2% of roads and carry over a third of the deaths

India’s official count may miss a third to a half of road deaths

Three numbers that need a second look

Only five countries recorded dirtier air than India in 2025

Almost every poor country breathes cleaner air than India

Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda breathe far cleaner air

Two of every three of the world’s most polluted cities are Indian

Dirty air is the biggest single threat to life in South Asia

The average Indian loses three and a half years of life to dirty air; a Delhi resident eight

Clean cooking fuel reached most homes, and cut smoke indoors

Most cities missed their clean-air targets; most money went on road dust

Three numbers that need a second look

Of every 100 litres of urban sewage, 28 are treated

The Yamuna enters Delhi within the safe limit and leaves it 3,160 times over

Delhi has the plants but not the results

Fewer polluted stretches, but nearly 300 remain

On safely managed sanitation, India is above the average for its income

Dirty water still kills Indians at twice the rate of their neighbours

Nearly 500 workers have died in sewers and septic tanks since 2019

Taps reached four rural homes in five; the waste water from them has nowhere to go

Three numbers that need a second look

Nine claims, nine checks

Nepal and India were both declared free of open defecation in 2019. Only Nepal got there.

Three-quarters processed, according to the ministry; less than half, according to the pollution board

The surveys that could check the claims ran late, or did not appear

When outside measures disagreed, the response was often to reject the measure

Three numbers that need a second look

Income concentration fell for thirty years after independence, then rose past colonial levels

The top 1% earn 23 times the average Indian; the bottom half share 15%

Household surveys show India as one of the more equal countries; income and tax records show the opposite

284 billionaires hold wealth worth almost a third of India’s annual output

Recorded riots fell; protests by prosperous groups for quotas grew

Three numbers that need a second look

An average person in Delhi earns eight times as much as one in Bihar

The big southern states are pulling further ahead of Bihar

Half of tribal Indians and a third of Dalits and Muslims are multidimensionally poor

Upper-caste Hindus own 41% of household wealth with 22% of the people

Gaps that follow identity reward identity politics and cash handouts

Manipur: a fight over quotas and land turned into three years of killing

Three numbers that need a second look

Two studies, opposite answers: who carries the GST?

Two of every three people who file a return pay no income tax

Individuals now pay more income tax than companies do

The richest 1% own 40% of the wealth, and wealth itself is not taxed

GST 2.0 cut taxes on everyday goods and added a 40% rate for luxuries

Three numbers that need a second look

India’s corruption score has hovered around 40 for a decade, below the world average

Cleaner than most of South Asia, well behind China and Bhutan

Four in ten Indians who used a public service paid a bribe; nearly half used connections

More firms meet bribe demands and see corruption as a major obstacle than a decade ago

Direct transfers closed some leaks; grain still goes missing on a large scale

₹16,518 crore flowed to parties through anonymous bonds before the Supreme Court struck them down

Three numbers that need a second look

India counts one in forty-five people as disabled; the world average is one in six

Half of disabled Indians can read, and one in four is in the labour force

Children with special needs thin out sharply in the senior classes

Fewer than a third had the certificate that unlocks benefits

The central pension is ₹300 a month and is open to about one disabled person in twenty

Three numbers that need a second look

Secondary enrolment rose fast but still trails poorer Nepal and Kenya

A quarter of rural 14–18-year-olds cannot read a Class 2 text fluently

Dropout jumps at the secondary stage

Eleven lakh teacher posts vacant; one lakh schools with a single teacher

Weak schooling shows up later as idle youth and unemployable graduates

Three numbers that need a second look

India’s share of adults in work fell for fifteen years of fast growth

Only one Indian worker in four earns a regular wage or salary

The more education a young Indian has, the likelier they are to be unemployed

1.26 crore applications for 35,208 railway jobs

India’s growth created jobs at a similar rate to its peers; its problem is quality and who is left out

Three numbers that need a second look

A workforce the size of a large state, growing three times over

Long days, thin margins

Four in ten face violence at work, and nearly half have no insurance

Young, urban and schooled: the profile of a restless workforce

From scattered protests to nationwide strikes

Three numbers that need a second look

India has started ageing at a fraction of the income at which East Asia did

India’s ageing has begun where China’s stood in 2000

Fertility has fallen below replacement, fastest in the richer states and cities

At past growth rates, India reaches China’s ‘aged’ income only in the 2050s

Most elderly Indians have no pension and many have no income

The share of dependants has fallen to its lowest; from here it turns

Three numbers that need a second look

Water per person crossed the stress line around 1990 and is nearing scarcity

Farms take nine of every ten litres India withdraws

Each cubic metre of water produces a sixth of the output it does in China

Three northern states pump out far more groundwater than rain puts back

Taps reached four in five rural homes; safe, regular water reached fewer

Three numbers that need a second look

Rice alone outweighs wheat; pulses and oilseeds are an afterthought

Government granaries hold more than twice what the buffer requires

Imports fill the gaps the grain-first policy leaves

The state buys mainly rice and wheat, and mostly from a few states

India sells 38% of the world’s traded rice, and ships out its groundwater with it

India harvests far less grain per hectare than its neighbours

Three numbers that need a second look

Two homes in three send their wastewater into open drains, soak pits or nowhere

Fewer than one litre in five of household wastewater flows into a sewer

Cities generate 72,000 million litres of sewage a day and treat 20,000

India treats a smaller share of household wastewater than China, Vietnam or Pakistan

Industrial effluent is tracked river by river, not nationally

Only one water body in ten that India monitors has good water quality

Nearly 500 workers died cleaning sewers and septic tanks since 2019

Three numbers that need a second look

Officially, India’s forests are growing slowly, but most of the cover is thin

India and China have added forest area; Indonesia and Brazil have lost it

Satellites show steady loss of natural forest

Three lakh hectares of forest land were handed over for projects in fifteen years

The most forested region is losing cover while the country gains

Three numbers that need a second look

The five warmest years on record all came after 2008

Heat cost India 247 billion working hours in 2024, two-thirds of them in farming

Three-quarters of India’s workers labour in the heat

Each extra degree cuts an informal worker’s earnings by about a seventh

One urban home in six has an air conditioner; one rural home in twenty-five does

Three numbers that need a second look

Neck and neck until the mid-1980s, then China pulled away

China entered the race with healthier, more literate, smaller families

China invested a far larger share of its income, every year

China’s share of world exports rose fivefold; India’s barely moved

Foreign investment flowed to China a dozen times faster

China cut extreme poverty from almost everyone to a third; India from half to under half

Three numbers that need a second look

China added more than four Indias

China makes three of every ten manufactured goods; India makes three in a hundred

China halved the share of its workers on farms; India cut it by a quarter

Both countries all but ended extreme poverty, China a decade earlier

On health, women’s work, universities and research, the gaps are still wide

The average Chinese uses five times as much electricity as the average Indian

China cut fine-particle pollution by a third in six years; India’s fell less

India now attracts more foreign investment, is younger and is free to argue

Three numbers that need a second look

India’s economy grew almost sixfold; the ten largest companies grew twelvefold

The single largest company is now worth more than India’s annual output

Three companies are each worth more than India produces in a year

All of India’s ten largest firms together are worth a fifth of Nvidia

Four American firms will invest more than half as much as the whole Indian economy

Against a superpower India gave ground; against single firms its rules mostly held

Three numbers that need a second look

Six problems, each costing up to five percent of GDP a year

Air pollution alone costs more than India spends on public health

Behind the percentages are lives

The biggest cost is the paid work India’s women are kept out of

Three numbers that need a second look

India turns income into wires and school places better than its peers, and into nutrition, health and clean air worse

Just reaching what India’s income already predicts would transform nine outcomes

Poorer countries rank higher on human development than on income; India ranks seven places lower

At 5% a year India reaches China’s 2018 income by 2036; at the typical pace, Indonesia’s of 2019

Only 3 of 24 countries at India’s income kept up 5% growth for the next fifteen years

Six numbers for the decade

Three numbers that need a second look

China and Thailand raised public health spending past 3% of GDP; India is at 1.3%

Where governments pay more, families pay less at the point of care

A focus on early reading has started to work; the gap to Vietnam is still vast

Bangladesh and Nepal cut stunting faster than India; at their pace India reaches 18% by 2036

Some Indian states are already near the target; others are twice as far

Doubling public health spending costs about 1.2% of GDP

Six numbers for people

Three numbers that need a second look

Every fast-growing economy moved workers off the land; India’s move stalled and then reversed

India needs about 80 lakh new jobs off the farm every year

A path back to 20%: what Bangladesh and Vietnam reached

Vietnam exports fifteen times as many manufactured goods per person as India

A path to 45%: what Indonesia already has

Five numbers for work

Three numbers that need a second look

Three targets for a state that maintains what it builds

India’s towns added 19 crore people in twenty years, and will add many more

Brazil’s cities raise seven times as much as India’s, relative to the economy

Halving road deaths by 2036 means reversing a twenty-year climb

Pedestrians die where streets have no room for them

Treating 70% of urban sewage means two and a half times today’s treatment

Six numbers for cities

Three numbers that need a second look

On what citizens actually live with, India ranks 16 places below its income

India scores well on power at home and roads per person; poorly on children’s growth, air and women’s work

India’s statisticians are capable; the institutions around them are weak

Several of India’s key numbers are five to seventeen years old

What honest numbers would need

Sixteen numbers voters can check

Three numbers that need a second look