Global rankings: the Gender Gap and Innovation indices
Two yearly league tables exams track for India's rank: gender parity from a Swiss forum, innovation from a UN agency.
What the paper can ask
- Gender Gap: WEF, first edition 2006, four sub-indices; Iceland ranked first in 2025 with 0.926; 148 economies covered in 2025. (as of 23 Oct 2026)
- Global Innovation Index: launched in 2007 by INSEAD and World Business magazine; WIPO publishes it, with Cornell University and INSEAD as partners until 2021; Switzerland ranked first in 2025; 139 economies covered in 2025. (as of 23 Oct 2026)
- The WEF is based in Cologny, Geneva, and WIPO is a UN agency headquartered in Geneva; both are in Switzerland.
Latest
Gender Gap Index 2026 (17 September 2026): India 131st of 145, parity about 64.5 percent, Iceland first. Global Innovation Index 2026 (29 September 2026): India 38th of 139, same as 2025, first among lower-middle-income economies.
Why exams ask
Setters ask which body publishes each index, India's latest rank, the top-ranked country, and the sub-indices.
The full story
Two global rankings recur in current affairs. The Global Gender Gap Report, published by the World Economic Forum since 2006, scores countries on four sub-indices: economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. The Global Innovation Index, started in 2007 and now published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, ranks economies on innovation inputs and outputs.