India plans to push again towards “agenda-driven”, “neo-colonial” nation rankings produced by world companies on matters like governance and press freedom, a key advisor to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi informed Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of Modi’s Economic Advisory Council, stated India has begun to lift this situation at world boards. He stated the indices have been being compiled by a “tiny group of think-tanks in the North Atlantic,” sponsored by three or 4 funding companies which can be “driving a real-world agenda.”

“It is not just narrative building in some diffused way. This has clear direct impact on trade, investment and other activities,” Sanyal stated.

India ranked lower than Afghanistan and Pakistan in the new World Press Freedom Index launched by Reporters Without Borders. It was under Pakistan and Bhutan in an instructional freedom index by V-Dem Institute.

Over the previous yr, India has in varied conferences pointed out the flaws in strategies used to compile world indices utilized by establishments just like the World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Sanyal stated.

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,” Sanyal stated.

The World Bank, WEF, Reporters Without Borders and V-DEM Institute didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. UNDP stated it might reply shortly.

Sanyal stated the scores additionally get hard-wired into decision-making by environmental, social and governance (ESG) norms and sovereign scores. Multilateral improvement banks supply subsidised loans to ESG-compliant initiatives.

“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 stated. “As things are currently evolving, developing countries have been completely left out of the conversation.”

The matter is being taken up by the Cabinet Secretariat, which has held greater than a dozen conferences on the problem this yr, a authorities official stated. The Cabinet Secretariat and finance ministry didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

India has stated it plans to be an advocate for growing international locations below its G20 presidency. Sanyal didn’t say if India has flagged the problem of nation 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 stated, including that involved ministries have been requested to ascertain benchmarks and have interaction repeatedly with scores companies.

Some of the upcoming indices being watched out by India are monetary improvement index by International Monetary Fund, gender inequality and human improvement indices by UNDP, logistics efficiency and worldwide governance indicators by the World Bank, sources stated.