India has failed to make any significant improvement in its poverty figures, with over 400 million – more than the total in the poorest African nations – still struck in poverty, the Human Development Report 2010 said, listing India at the 119th position on the Human Development Index. Though India has jumped one position during the last five years, it continues to have high absolute poverty of people living below $1.25 per day along with high incidence of multidimensionality which is characterized by lack of access to health, education and living standards.

“Eight Indian states with poverty as acute as the 26 poorest African countries are home to 421 million multidimensionally poor people, more than the 410 million people living in those African countries combined,” says the report issued by the UN Development Programme.

At present about 1.75 billion people live in multi-dimensional poverty and 1.44 billion live below absolute poverty in the world. While Norway, Australia and New Zealand lead the the world in HDI achievement, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe figure at the bottom of the pile among 169 countries in HDI – a composite national measure for health, education, and income.

In sharp contrast, China moved up the HDI ladder by 8 positions to occupy the 89th rank in the world during the last five years. China is now estimated to have 16% of its population living below $1.25 a day and 12% of the people caught in multidimensional poverty.

Since its inception in 1990, the UNDP’s Human Development Report has become a barometer to judge how countries are performing in improving the social, economic and political well-being of their population.