ON JUNE 25, 2026, the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (‘HRMI’) released its data tracking the human rights performance of 212 countries across the world with nearly 141 countries furnishing the requisite data either completely or partially. The countries were scored on three categories of Human Rights with the first being ‘Quality of Life’ comprising the rights to education, food, health, housing and work; followed by ‘Safety from the State’ which comprised the right to freedom from arbitrary arrest, forced disappearance, death penalty, torture and ill treatment, extrajudicial execution and lastly ‘Empowerment’ which comprised the rights to assembly and association, opinion and expression, participation in government, religion and belief. The countries were distinctly divided on the basis of their recognition as a High Income, Low and Middle Income country.
‘People from particular castes, work or descent most vulnerable to have right to education violated’
India which comes under the category of Low and Middle Income Countries with a population of 1450. 9 million has scored an overall 74.2 percent in the category of ‘Quality of Life’ under the benchmark of ‘Income Adjusted’ with the benchmark denoting the extent to which a particular country is performing ably when viewed vis -a-vis the country’s income level (a country can score a 100 percent if its resources are utilised in a manner which is most efficient).
India’s performance on Quality of Life was marked as ‘close to average’ in comparison to other South Asian Countries and it is also termed the same when compared with the benchmark of ‘best in the world’. Of the categories of rights identified and scored individually within the broader head of Quality of Life , India scored the lowest in right to food with a staggering 59.1 percent and highest in right to health with an astounding 84.7 percent. The Right to education exercised by females and males is nearly similar with 75.1 percent and 75.2 percent respectively.
