Henley Passport Index Report, Pakistan stands at embarassing position, India faces the setback too
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*New Delhi:* Afghanistan, meanwhile, ranks at the bottom of the pile at 107th, with a visa-free access score of 26. Iraq is at 106th and Syria 105th. Pakistan and Somalia are at rank 104, with a score of 32 each.
Henley Passport Index link released on 7 January placing India at the joint 84th rank, as it enjoys visa-free access to only 58 nations.
Each rank can be held by multiple countries, and 147 nations actually fare better than India, which shares the 84th rank with Mauritania and Tajikistan.
The index, prepared by global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners, is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and ranks link passports according to “the number of destinations a holder can access without a prior visa”.
While India’s current 84th rank is two spots higher than the last assessment in August 2019, it is well below the 2014 mark link of 76th. The ranking dropped link 85th in 2016, and subsequently moved link up to 81st in 2018, before becoming worse in August 2019 link with a rank of 86th.
Among the BRICS nations, Brazil ranks 19th, Russia 51st, South Africa 56th and China 71st.
Japan continues to have the most powerful passport in the world, with the Henley Index ranking link it number one for the third time consecutively. According to the index, Japan enjoys a ‘score’ of 191, which means its passport-holders enjoy visa-free access to 191 countries.
Singapore is second with a score of 190, while Germany and South Korea are tied for third with a score of 189.
According to Henley & Partners, there is a “direct link between visa openness and progressive reform”, and that “countries moving towards nationalist isolationism and away from policies that encourage visa openness are likely to drop” in the ranking.