New Delhi: In the latest Hanley Passport Index, the rank of the Indian passport has witnessed an upward vertical shift as it climbed five places up to reach the 80th position as compared to 2022. Indians can now travel to 57 destinations without a visa which includes Indonesia, Thailand, and others without a visa or obtain visas on arrival.
However, Indians do require a visa to enter 177 destinations worldwide, including Russia, Japan, China, and several other countries. As per the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), countries like Bhutan, and Nepal which share close borders with India and Maldives, Senegal, Suriname, and Mauritius are visa-free to India. While, nations like Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Kenya, and Nigeria have visa-on-arrival facilities for Indian passport holders.
The latest report released for the year 2023 includes 199 different passports and 227 travel destinations. It is for the first time that Japan has been replaced by Singapore as the world's most powerful passport, dropping to the 3rd place. Japan was holding the first rank for the last five years but now has been dropped to third place.
The United States, which ranked first a decade ago secured its presence at the eighth position. Similarly, the United Kingdom, post-Brexit, jumped two places to fourth, a position it last held in 2017. The countries which secured the rank at the lowest five include Afghanistan (103) with access to 27 destinations. Yemen (99), Pakistan (100), Syria (101), and Iraq (102) round up the bottom five.
All of these bottom-ranked countries have in the past faced strong insurgency from extremists, Islamists groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and several others.
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