I. Human Development is defined as expanding people’s choices and emphasising them to be healthy, educated and having a good standard of living. Human Development Index (HDI) published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 1990 focuses on people as the centre of development. HDI was developed by Mahbub-ul-Haq and Amartya Sen. States with HDI value lower than 0.40 are:

• Chhattisgarh with HDI of 0.358

• Odisha with HDI of 0.362

• Bihar with HDI of 0.367

• Madhya Pradesh with HDI of 0.375

• Jharkhand with HDI of 0.376

• Uttar Pradesh with HDI of 0.380

II.

Human Development is defined as expanding people’s choices and emphasising them to be healthy, educated and having a good standard of living. Human Development Index (HDI) published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 1990 focuses on people as the centre of development. HDI was developed by Mahbub-ul-Haq and Amartya Sen.

HDI ranks countries on a score between 0 to 1- in which 0 depicts the lowest HDI and 1 the highest HDI. Countries are ranked on the basis of three goals of development. Each of these dimensions is given a weight of 1/3:

• Long life (measured by life expectancy at birth)

• Knowledge (measured by adult literacy and schooling)

• The standard of living (measured by per capita income)

As of 2017 data, India ranks 130^th among the 189 countries with a score of 0.640 putting India in the medium human development category. Our HDI ranking is very low because of the lower quality of human life due to various social, economic and political factors in our county. A lot of measures are being taken by the government to improve the conditions of life of the people, but the rate at which its benefits are reaching the people is very slow.

The Indian states can be analysed and ranked on the basis of their performance in various economic and social indicators. According to 2017 data, the southern state of Kerala ranks first among the states with an HDI value of 0.784, while the northern state Bihar ranks the last with an HDI value of 0.401. Thus, even in India, a diverse situation exists with the southern states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu having a higher HDI rank than most of the northern states. This is because of the differences in the quality of human life and opportunities available to the people. The causes of why the northern states are lagging behind can be explained as:

• Health facilities- All the northern states -except the capital city Delhi- have poor infrastructure and health facilities. The incidents of hospitalised deaths due to negligence and lack of infrastructure is most common in north India. Recently many news reported the death of 60 infants due to short supply of oxygen in incubators in Uttar Pradesh. In many instances, the infants die of rat bites and power failures in north Indian hospitals. The number of Public Health Centres and the doctor-patient ratio is very low in northern states. Some hospitals do not even possess an ambulance and other basic facilities. Comparing the data, the life expectancy in Bihar is 68.1 while it is 74.9 in Kerala. The infant mortality rate is 61 in Bihar while it is 10 in Kerala and the maternal mortality rate is the highest in Uttar Pradesh in northern India with 201 deaths, while it is the lowest in Kerala with 46 deaths. These figures show that the better health facilities in the southern states contribute to a better quality of life.

• Education- Northern India –except the northeastern states- rank very low in basic education. Only the creamy layer in the society are given opportunities for education while others lack even basic literacy. Many social and cultural aspects like the caste system and the oppression by the higher caste contribute much to the lack of basic education. Bihar is the least literate state in the county with the literacy rate of 63.82% according to 2011 census while Kerala has a literacy rate of 93.91%. Rajasthan has the lowest female literacy rate. Female education does not have much importance in the northern states. The female school enrolment ratio is very low in many northern states with Jharkhand having the lowest of 9.8. This discrimination in education is also a major factor contributing to their lower HDI rank.

• Per capita income- Most of the northern states are caught in a circle of low income, low savings, poor education, poverty that again contributes to lower income. The per capita income of the northern states is much lower than the southern states if Maharashtra is ruled out. According to the 2016-17 data, Bihar has the lowest per capita income of Rs. 38,546. This absolute poverty and poor standard of living also cause lower HDI ranking for many northern states.

Thus raising the education level, access to health facilities and the per capita income would be the thoughts of Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq or Prof. Amartya Sen to raise the level of human development in these states of India.