Context: According to the latest Digital Quality of Life Index from Surfshark Digital, India ranks 59th among 110 countries.

About DQL 2021 index 

• It analyzes 110 countries (in contrast to 85 in 2020) around the world in terms of five core pillars: internet affordability, internet quality, e-infrastructure, e-security, and e-government. 
• These pillars consist of 14 (two more than last year) indicators that are interrelated and work together to measure the overall digital quality of life.
• This year’s study includes 25 (29%) more countries than DQL 2020, most of which are African countries.

Key highlights in context of India
Indian Rankings: India stands at the overall rank of 59 out of the 110 countries. The global digital well-being study shows that India has dropped 2 places since last year.

India's Pillars wise ranking

• Internet Affordability: 4tth place.
• Internet Quality: 67th place 
• E-infrastructure: 91st place and and shows the lowest result
• Electronic Security: 36th position.
• E-government: 33th place 

Overall, India has demonstrated a slight drop compared to DQL 2020, falling from 57th to 59st place. The country now comes 17th in Asia and 1st in the Southern Asia region. 

• India’s e-security has improved by 76% since last year and now ranks higher than China’s, the study found. The pillar now ranks 36th and has improved by 76% since last year.

Key Challenges

• There’s room for improvement in India's e-infrastructure.
• The mobile speed in India is one of the slowest in the world, the report stated.

Global Findings

• The 10 countries with the best digital quality of life were Denmark, South Korea, Finland, Israel, the United States of America, Singapore, France, Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
• Denmark ranks 1st in DQL for the second year in a row and is closely followed by South Korea. 
• Finland ranks 3rd, while Israel and the U.S. round out the top five of 110 nations that were evaluated. 
• Out of 10 countries with the best digital quality of life, six are from Europe. Furthermore, only 18 countries out of the top 50 are from outside Europe.
• The bottom 5 countries are Ethiopia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Guatemala, and Angola.

Government Initiatives Related to Internet

• Digital India Programme: It is an umbrella program to prepare India for a knowledge-based transformation.
• e-Kranti: National e-Governance Plan 2.0 which is an essential pillar of the Digital India initiative.
• Digilockers: It enables Indian citizens to store certain official documents on the cloud.
• BHIM App: To enable digital payments.
• Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan: To make citizens digitally literate.
• Bharat Net programme: To provide an optical fibre network in all gram panchayats.