Global Innovation Index: India moves up to 66th rank this year

Global Innovation Index (GII), a ranking co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations) saw India's ranking jump to 66 this year from 81 in 2015. 

India saw improvement in sections such as institution, human capital and research, market and business sophistication.

In market sophistication, India  was at ranked on 33 position from 72 position, which was tapped by domestic market scale – a new addition to the section.
 
Interestingly, the domestic market scale ranked 3rd on the poll. However, the ease of protecting minority interest was at 8th position from the 7th position of the previous years data.

Further, the business sophistication was at 57th rank from the 116th which was led by new indicators such as intellectual property payments, ICT services imports and research talent business enterprises.

With the government initiating various measures in order to boost the foreign investors has also been acknowledged by the GII index.
 
The improvement was not only driven by just performance but also some changes in survey methodology such as addition of new indicators.

In foreign direct investment net inflows, India stood at 86th place from the last year's position of 98. 

India saw a record 53% increase in FDI in last two years as the investment climate strengthened due to steps initiated to curb growth, price stability and fiscal prudence which also improved the overall macroeconomic stability, said Ministry of Finance.
 
It was the information and communication technology (ICT) services exports where India took the highest rank among the countries. This was of knowledge and technology outputs which increased one rank higher from the previous 95th rank. 

However, the infrastructure section remained muted at 87th position same as 2015 rankings.

"Infrastructure is the biggest hurdle to the ambitious Make in India programme of the government," S&P Global Ratings Credit Analyst Abhishek Dangra on Economic Times.

Also, during the first annual meeting of New Development bank (NDB), Raj Kumar, Department of Economic affairs said that investments in sustainable infrastructure should be a niche area of focus of the Bank.

Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America and Finland have been placed ahead of Singapore as the top 5 in the index. 

China has been ranked as the 25th place in the index, which marks the first time a middle-income country to join the highly developed economies.

The index measures the performance of 128 countries in terms of innovation, and is based on 82 sub-indices.

The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, in partnership with other organisations and institutions, and is based on both subjective and objective data derived from several sources, including the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.