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Children of Cows

 

Source: unsplash.com

Prime Minister Modi declared the cow our mother last week while addressing a rally in Varanasi. I have my own mother and am certainly not interested in a surrogate especially at my age now. If some of my fellow citizens are in need of more mothers, who am I to object? My problem is not about having many mothers but about what Modi ji is doing for the cow’s children. Now that he is completing eight years in power, we need to assess his performance and see whether it is more mothers we need.

Let me tabulate a few indices to summarise Modi ji’s contribution to the nation in the last eight years as PM.

Index

Year & Rank

Year & Rank

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index

2014 - 27

2020 – 53

UNDP Human Development Index

2014 - 130

2020 – 131

IMD World Competitiveness Ranking

2013 - 40

2021 – 43

Freedom House’s Freedom in World Index

2014 - 77

2021 – 67

World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index

2014 - 66

2020 – 69

UN Sustainable Development Solutions World Happiness Report

2015 - 117

2021 – 139

Legatum Institute Prosperity Index

2015 - 99

2020 – 101

World Press Freedom Index

2014 - 140

2021 – 142

Georgetown Institute Women, Peace & Security Index

2017 - 131

2020 - 133

Fraser Institute Global Economic Freedom Index

2015 - 95

2020 – 105

Cato Human Freedom Index

2015 - 75

2020 – 111

World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index

2014 - 114

2021 – 140

World Bank Women, Business and Law Index

2014 - 111

2021 – 123

World Index of Moral Freedom

2016 - 41

2020 – 70

International Intellectual Property Index

2014 - 25

2021 – 40

Global Innovation Index

2014 - 76

2020 – 48

World Economic Forum Global Economic Competitiveness

2017 - 40

2020 – 68

Internet Shutdown Tracker [shutdowns by govts]

2014 - 6

2020 – 109

WB International Logistics Performance Index

2014 - 54

2018 – 44

Numbeo Quality of Life Index

2014 - 48

2021 – 65

Fund for Peace Fragile States Index

2014 -81

2021 – 66

Global RTI Rating

2013 - 2

2021 – 6

Global Hunger Index

2014 - 55

2020 – 94

WB Doing Business Report

2014 - 142

2020 – 63

Knight Frank Global House Price Index

2015 - 17

2021 – 55

Quality of Nationality Index

2014 - 88

2018 – 95

WEF Human Capital Index

2013 - 78

2017 – 103

Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index

2015 - 103

2019 – 120

AT Kearney FDI Confidence Index

2014 - 7

2021 – no rank

Yale Environmental Performance Index

2014 - 155

2020 – 168

Germanwatch Global Climate Risk Index

2014 - 18

2021 – 7

Sustainable Development Index

2016 - 110

2021 - 120

Food Sustainability Index

2016 - 25

2018 – 33

Economics and Peace Positive Peace Index

2021 – Last out of 51 nations

Source: Aakar Patel, Price of the Modi Years

 

In every one of the above indices, India has slid down drastically during the Modi years. Some of the rankings are in ascending order and some in descending. So the numbers may confuse you a bit. But let me repeat: India came down invariably in every index.

Now tell me, is it more mothers or even fathers that we Indians need?

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 401: Cow is mother, sacred to us: PM Modi #CowMother

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