India has been ranked as the 88th country among the 110 countries ranked in the 2010 Legatum Prosperity Index. The prosperity index is based on 89 variables over 110 countries, grouped into eight sub-indexes, and claims to comprehensively rank the level of prosperity in 110 nations of the world. “The Legatum Prosperity Index is the world’s only global assessment of wealth and well being. It uses a holistic definition of prosperity, which includes factors ranging from economic growth to health and education, to personal freedom and governance,” said Ashley Lenihan, Legatum Institute’s Senior Fellow.

The London-based Legatum Institute that compiled the index had ranked India at the 78th position in their 2009 rankings; the country slipped 10 positions to its present rank. Poor rankings in Social Capital together with Health care, Entrepreneurship and opportunity, and Educational system constituted to this collapse in rank. According to the index India’s inflation rate of 8.4 percent, which is around the global average, and a high gross domestic savings rate of 34.3 percent indicates a relatively stable national economy, and the country, despite current low standards of living, is growing steadily. This helped India to achieve its top spot in the sub-index by being the 44th in Economy. India got ranked fifth from the bottom at 105th position in the Social Capital sub-index making this the country’s lowest sub-index rank.

In the list lead by Norway and followed by Denmark (2), Finland (3), Australia (4) and New Zealand (5), the U.S. came at the 10th position while UK came at 13. India’s close neighbor China is ranked at 58th while Nepal and Pakistan are 91st and 109th respectively. The last country on the list and the only country that came after Pakistan was Zimbabwe (110).