Human Development Report – 2011 has ranked India at 134 out of 187 countries in terms of Human Development Index, HDI. However, the report observed that life expectancy at birth in the country has increased by 10.1 per cent a year over the last two decades.

The report, prepared by United Nation Development Programme was on Wednesday released in New Delhi.

This year, the HDI value for India is 0.547 positioning the country in the medium human development category.

The HDI is a measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development such as a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.

The report also said that the mean year of schooling for the country increased by 3.9 years between 1980 and 2011.

Rural Development Minister Mr. Jairam Ramesh, who was present at the report release function, however, sounded dismissive about the figures in the report.

He said a better way of analysing the progress made by countries including India is to measure comparative success they have achieved on this count in the last few years from their previous record rather than by the number of their positions in the international chart.