India to fight back against International ranking firms that are "agenda-driven"

New Delhi: An important advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Reuters in an interview on Friday that India intends to fight back against "agenda-driven" and "neo-colonial" country rankings created by international organisations on subjects like governance and press freedom.

India has started bringing up this problem at international forums, according to Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of PM Modi's Economic Advisory Council. He said the indices were being compiled by a "tiny group of think tanks in the North Atlantic," sponsored by three or four funding agencies that are "driving a real-world agenda."

"It is not just narrative building in some diffused way. This has a clear direct impact on trade, investment and other activities," Mr Sanyal said, Reuters reported.

In the most recent Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, India came in lower than Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the V-Dem Institute's index of academic freedom, it ranked below Pakistan and Bhutan.

The shortcomings in the procedures used to construct international indices utilised by organisations like the World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF), and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have been highlighted by India during the past year in a number of meetings, according to Mr Sanyal.

The "World Bank is involved in this discussion because it takes these opinions from these think tanks and effectively sanctifies it by putting it into something called the world governance index," Mr Sanyal said.

Requests for comment from the World Bank, WEF, Reporters Without Borders, and V-DEM Institute were not immediately fulfilled. UNDP promised a quick response.

Through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards and sovereign ratings, according to Mr Sanyal, the ratings are also hardwired into decision-making. ESG-compliant projects are eligible for financing with subsidies from multilateral development banks.

"The idea of having some ESG norms is not the problem in itself. The problem relates to how these norms are defined and who certifies or measures compliance to these norms," he said. "As things are currently evolving, developing countries have been completely left out of the conversation."

According to a government official, the Cabinet Secretariat is taking up the subject and has discussed it at more than a dozen meetings so far this year. Requests for comment from the Cabinet Secretariat and the finance ministry were not immediately fulfilled.

India has stated that it intends to support developing nations while holding the G20 presidency. Mr Sanyal did not mention whether India had brought up the issue of country rankings with the G20.

"There are other developing countries who are also concerned about this because effectively this is a form of neo-colonialism," he said, adding that concerned ministries have been asked to establish benchmarks and engage continuously with rating agencies.

According to sources, India is keeping an eye on a number of new indices, including the World Bank's global governance indicators and logistics performance, as well as the International Monetary Fund's financial development index and UNDP's indices measuring gender inequality and human development.