Ranking of govts: 3 southern states top

Three south Indian states topped the 2018 Public Affairs Index, a governance ranking exercise of Bengaluru based think tank, Public Affairs Centre. Kerala retained the top for the third year running.

Karnataka, though improved its' overall score, remained at the same fifth position, compared to the 2017 score and Telangana replaced Gujarat for the third position. Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh remained at second and fourth positions respectively.

"Public Affairs Index (PAI) is a data-driven platform to rank the 30 States of India from the lens of governance. While it is a complex task to rank the Indian states which are economically, culturally and socially so diverse, Public Affairs Centre (PAC) has developed PAI as a unique statistical tool to evaluate the performance of governance in the States. PAI is largely based on secondary data and has been extracted from Union Government Ministries and Departments," describes the website about the ranking process.

"PAI 2018 comprises of 10 broad themes, 30 focus subjects and a gamut of 100 indicators. In addition, there is a special chapter on the Children of India describing in detail various issues regarding the manner in which we deal with our future citizens."

The broad themes of the ranking include Children of India, Economic Freedom, Transparency and Accountability, Environment, Delivery of Justice, Fiscal Mangement, Crime, Law & Order, Women and Children, Social Protection, Support to Human Development and Essential Infrastructure.

Karnataka saw a huge jump in fiscal management and economic freedom in last one year, according to the study. Meanwhile, the state lost its first place to Haryana on transparency. It also moved down two spots to 20 in delivery of justice. In social protection, Karnataka is at 25th place among the 30 states, which is 10 spots below of the last year's score. It also saw a dip in the women and children index this year.

Jharkhand, Meghalaya and Bihar are the last three states in the overall ranking.

Established by economist Dr Samuel Paul in 1994, PAC is a not for profit think tank working "with a mandate to improve the quality of governance in India."