The good news in the annual Global Gender Gap Index 2026, released on Wednesday by the World Economic Forum, is that India managed to hold on to its rank of 131, out of 145 countries, that it obtained last year. Only 14 countries, such as Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Mali, and Papua New Guinea, are behind India—hardly anything to crow about.

The non-slippage in the rank is not a consolation for the Government of India despite rolling out specific programmes for women’s upliftment and welfare in the past decade. On a scale that measures gender parity from zero (lowest) to 1 (highest), India got a score of 0.64; it was the same in 2014, too, when the BJP-led government assumed power.

Index Tracks Four........

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