The methodology for core State of the States (SOS) rankings remains unchanged. Variables across eight heads (agriculture, consumer markets, education, law and order, health, infrastructure, investment and macro economy) are aggregated to obtain scores and ranks for each state.

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Economists Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari explain India Today's sixth annual study of states.

The methodology for core State of the States (SOS) rankings remains unchanged. Variables across eight heads (agriculture, consumer markets, education, law and order, health, infrastructure, investment and macro economy) are aggregated to obtain scores and ranks for each state.

Then they are aggregated again to obtain a composite score and rank. Among major states, the composite ranking is topped by Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, in that order, with Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar bringing up the rear. Punjab is pulled up by agriculture, consumer markets, infrastructure, investment and macro economy. It performs poorly in education, health and law and order.

Gender discrimination is not a variable included explicitly. Otherwise, Punjab's performance would have been worse. Tamil Nadu does not perform well on either consumer markets or macro economy. Had it not been for agriculture, Himachal Pradesh would have climbed further up.

These ranks and scores are even more revealing. For instance, in agriculture, the gap between Punjab and the second and the third (Haryana and Tamil Nadu) is considerable. And this is mirrored in the gap between Puducherry and all the small states.

Consumer markets are clustered in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Maharashtra and Kerala and are non-existent in Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar. Among smaller states, the gap in consumer markets between Delhi and Goa and the others is even starker. To restate the obvious, south India scores better than the north in governance.

To a lesser extent, this is also true of education and health, where some north-eastern states do well, as do Uttarakhand (education), Himachal and Jammu & Kashmir (health). States have often benefited from high-base effects and consequently, apples may be compared with oranges. All states have been improving since 1991-the first year of the survey. Some states have improved a lot after 2000 than in the past.

We are grateful for the intensive data gathering and analysis by Deepa Nayak and Ankur Gupta of Indicus Analytics.