India's FDI Confidence ranking drops by 4 points, from 7th to 11th position: AT Kearney

By Rajiv Shah
Top international consultants AT Kearney have noted that, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India drive, India has dropped from the top 10 positions in foreign direct investment (FDI) confidence index for the first time since 2002. In a just-released report, “Connected Risks: Investing in a Divergent World”, the consultants’ rankings show that India in 2015 ranks No 11th, down from the seventh position in 2014.
All this has happened at a time when “the country's Make in India initiative, launched in September 2014, aims to improve the ease of doing business in India, and remove or relax foreign equity caps in several areas”, the report says. The report also notes this development when the Government of India’s “revised estimates” suggested the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew “faster than China’s last year”, and its consumer market remained “significant, sparking broad investor interest.”

The report notes that India’s FDI confidence index ranking was No 2 in 2007, when what then seemed to be an unstable Congress-led coalition at the Centre ruled the country. The ranking remained high over the years when the coalition was in power – No 3 in 2010, No 2 in 2012, No 5 in 2013, and No 7 in 2014, when the UPA government was thrown out of power by a sweeping win by Modi-led BJP.

Despite India “overtaking” China in GDP growth, the report notes that the country remains No 2 of the 25 top FDI Confidence index ranking. It says, “Business executives are carefully watching China for economic growth of around 7 percent, and for signs of a successful transition to a consumption-led economy.”

The report adds, “If those indicators emerge, most executives say their companies would increase investment activity into China. Overall, countries in Asia Pacific have a mixed showing in the Index, with Japan rising to 7th (from 19th last year), and South Korea reentering the Index at 16th after going unranked last year. Australia (10th), India (11th), and Singapore (15th) fall in the rankings but maintain top 20 positions.”
Interestingly, India’s ranking has petered despite the fact that only 12 per cent of business executives – one of the lowest among the top 25 countries – felt negative about India’s FDI confidence level. On the other hand as many as 28 per cent of executives felt positive about India, which was lower than only four other countries – US (46 per cent), Canada (35 per cent), Germany (33 per cent), and China (31 per cent).

The FDI Confidence Index, established by AT Kearney in 1998, claims to examine the “overarching trends in FDI”, ranking the top 25 countries. About its methodology, the report says, it is a “forward-looking analysis of how political, economic, and regulatory changes will likely affect countries' FDI inflows in the coming years”, adding, “Over its 17-year history, there has been a strong correlation between the rankings and global FDI flows.”

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma* As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor* A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Transgender Bill testimony of Govt of India's ‘contempt’ for marginalized community

Counterview Desk India’s civil society network, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)* has said that the controversial transgender Bill, passed in the Rajya Sabha on November 26, which happened to be the 70th anniversary of the Indian Constitution, is a reflection on the way the Government of India looks at the marginalized community with utter contempt.

Search This Blog