*New Delhi:* Afghanistan, meanwhile, ranks at the bottom of the pile at107th, with a visa-free access score of 26. Iraq is at 106th and Syria105th. Pakistan and Somalia are at rank 104, with a score of 32 each.
Henley Passport Index link releasedon 7 January placing India at the joint 84th rank, as it enjoys visa-freeaccess to only 58 nations.
Each rank can be held by multiple countries, and 147 nations actually farebetter than India, which shares the 84th rank with Mauritania andTajikistan.
The index, prepared by global citizenship and residence advisory firmHenley & Partners, is based on data from the International Air TransportAssociation (IATA) and rankslinkpassportsaccording to “the number of destinations a holder can access without aprior visa”.
While India’s current 84th rank is two spots higher than the lastassessment in August 2019, it is well below the 2014 marklinkof76th. The ranking droppedlink85th in 2016, and subsequently movedlinkupto 81st in 2018, before becoming worse in August 2019linkwitha rank of 86th.
Among the BRICS nations, Brazil ranks 19th, Russia 51st, South Africa 56thand China 71st.
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Japan continues to have the most powerful passport in the world, with theHenley Index rankinglinkitnumber one for the third time consecutively. According to the index, Japanenjoys a ‘score’ of 191, which means its passport-holders enjoy visa-freeaccess to 191 countries.
Singapore is second with a score of 190, while Germany and South Korea aretied for third with a score of 189.
According to Henley & Partners, there is a “direct link between visaopenness and progressive reform”, and that “countries moving towardsnationalist isolationism and away from policies that encourage visaopenness are likely to drop” in the ranking.
