India&rsquos position has risen by seven ranks in the Henley Passport Index for the first quarter of the year 2022. The country which earlier stood at 90th position in 2021 has climbed up to 83rd position in the present year. The country shares the position with Sao Tome and Principe in Central Africa and is behind nations like Rwanda and Mongolia.
The countries on the top global ranking are Japan and Singapore that have visa-free access to 192 countries followed by Germany and South Korea that have access to 190 destinations. The countries at the bottom of the list are Afghanistan with visa-free access to 26 countries and Iraq with access to 28 destinations.
The Henley Passport Index is a global ranking of all the world&rsquos passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. The index is calculated based on data obtained from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) which is the largest and most accurate travel information database.
The process of ranking involves checking all 199 passports individually against all the 227 possible destinations in the world. It also monitors all the relevant visa policy changes worldwide.
For each travel destination, if no visa is required for passport holders then a value of 1 is created for it. The same score applies to passport holders who obtain a visa on arriving at the destination. Where a visa is required or where the passport holder has to obtain an e-visa before departure, such a passport is assigned a value of zero. The total score for each passport is equal to the number of destinations for which no visa is required.
As per the results from the Henley Passport Index Report, there is a huge disparity in travel freedom between countries like US who can freely visit 180 or more destinations and countries like Cameroon, which can only enter 50. This divide has worsened with the emergence of the Omicron variant which led to more restrictions on travel to and from African countries from where the virus is supposed to have originated.  The U.N Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has gone further to call this situation &ldquotravel apartheid&rdquo.