CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 50 of 120

Correct — C, 1 and 3 only. The Human Development Index has three dimensions and four indicators, and the 2020 Report put India's values at a life expectancy at birth of 69.7 years, expected years of schooling of 12.2, mean years of schooling of 6.5, and gross national income per capita of 6,681 international dollars at 2017 purchasing power parity, giving an HDI of 0.645 and a rank of 131. Read across those four, the two that were still moving in the years immediately before the Report are the health indicator and the income indicator — life expectancy had continued its slow climb, and per-capita income had continued to rise on the Report's own recomputed series. The two schooling measures are the ones that had gone flat: expected years of schooling sat at 12.2 and mean years of schooling at 6.5, and neither was rising from edition to edition. That is why the key pairs statement 1 with statement 3 and leaves statements 2 and 4 out.

• (a)1 and 2 only — Pairs life expectancy with expected years of schooling. The health indicator belongs in the answer, but expected years of schooling is one of the two education measures that had stopped moving at 12.2 years.
• (b)2 and 3 only — Pairs expected years of schooling with income. Income belongs, but the schooling measure does not, for the same reason.
• (d)1, 2, 3 and 4 — The all-four option, and the one a candidate reaches for after remembering that India's human development has improved a great deal over the long run. Measured against 1990 that is true of every component; measured over the recent years the stem asks about, the two schooling indicators had levelled off.

The HDI combines a long and healthy life, measured by life expectancy at birth; knowledge, measured by expected years of schooling for a child entering school and mean years of schooling for adults over 25; and a decent standard of living, measured by gross national income per capita at purchasing power parity. Each indicator is converted to an index between 0 and 1 and the three dimension indices are combined as a geometric mean.

This is the one item in this range where the key and a wide reading of the source pull against each other, and it is worth saying so plainly. The 2020 Report's own India note also records gains across 1990 to 2019 in all four components — life expectancy up by nearly twelve years, mean years of schooling up by three and a half, expected years of schooling up by four and a half, and per-capita income up by well over two hundred per cent — so a candidate reading in recent years as since 1990 would arrive at option (d). The key takes the narrower reading, comparing the Report with those immediately before it, where the two schooling measures were static. The card follows the key, as it must, and records the tension. A further complication worth knowing is that the 2020 Report switched its income measure to 2017 purchasing power parity dollars, so income figures are not directly comparable with earlier editions. Present-day line: India stood at rank 130 of 193 countries in the 2025 Report.

• The HDI has three dimensions and four indicators — life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling, mean years of schooling and GNI per capita.
• The Human Development Report 2020 gave India an HDI of 0.645 and a rank of 131 out of 189 countries.
• India's component values in that Report were life expectancy 69.7 years, expected years of schooling 12.2, mean years of schooling 6.5 and GNI per capita 6,681 at 2017 PPP.
• The same Report records improvement on all four components measured over the long run from 1990 to 2019.
• The 2020 Report also introduced the planetary pressures-adjusted HDI, which discounts the index for carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint.

• Reading in recent years as since 1990 — over the long run every component has improved.
• Comparing GNI per capita across reports without noticing changes in the purchasing power parity base year.
• Treating the HDI rank as the same kind of information as the HDI value; the rank also moves when the number of countries covered changes.

As a components item asking which indicators moved, or as a ranking question placing countries in order on the index.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following is not one of the four indicators used to compute the Human Development Index?

  • (a)Life expectancy at birth
  • (b)Mean years of schooling
  • (c)Infant mortality rate
  • (d)Gross national income per capita

  Answer(c) Infant mortality rate — the health dimension of the HDI is measured only by life expectancy at birth.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The three dimension indices of the Human Development Index are combined using

  • (a)a simple arithmetic mean
  • (b)a geometric mean
  • (c)a weighted median
  • (d)a harmonic mean

  Answer(b) a geometric mean — adopted in 2010 so that poor performance on one dimension can no longer be fully offset by a strong showing on another.