2014 UNDP Human Development Report

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an underdeveloped country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life. The index was developed in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and Indian economist Amartya Sen.

Countries fall into four broad human development categories, each of which comprises 47 countries: Very High Human Development, High Human Development, Medium Human Development and Low Human Development (46 countries in this category).

Rank	Very High HDI	High HDI	Medium HDI	Low HDI
I	Norway (1)	Uruguay (50)	Maldives (103)	Nepal (145)
Last	Argentina (49)	Dominican Rep (102)	Equatorial Guinea (144)	Niger (187)

India and her neighbours:

2014 Overall Rank	Country	2014 Index	Category
73	Sri Lanka	0.750	High HDI
91	China	0.719
135	India	0.586	Medium HDI
136	Bhutan	0.584
142	Bangladesh	0.558
145	Nepal	0.540	Low HDI
146	Pakistan	0.537
150	Myanmar	0.524
169	Afghanistan	0.468