India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, becoming the third-worst performer in South Asia.

According to the report, India has closed 62.5% of its gender gap till date. The country had ranked 112th among 153 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2020.

Among India’s neighbours, Bangladesh ranked 65, Nepal 106, Pakistan 153, Afghanistan 156, Bhutan 130 and Sri Lanka 116.

For the 12th time, Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world. The top 10 most gender-equal countries include Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Rwanda, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland.

About the Global Gender Gap Report:

First published in 2006. It benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions:

1. Economic Participation and Opportunity,
2. Educational Attainment,
3. Health and Survival and
4. Political Empowerment.

Over the Index, the highest possible score is 1 (equality) and the lowest possible score is 0 (inequality).

Election Commission of India today hosted International Virtual Election Visitors Programme (IEVP) 2021 for Election Management Bodies (EMBs) /Organisations from 26 countries  and three International Organisations during the ongoing elections for Legislative Assemblies of Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
IEVP 2021 provided the participants an overview of the large canvas of Indian electoral process, the new initiatives taken by ECI on voter facilitation, transparency and accessibility of electoral system etc and ECI’s response to the changing needs of training and capacity building and the new formats necessitated by COVID-19.