Indian passport gets stronger: Travel sans a prior visa to 60 countries from now

[SwatiSood]

India has improved its passport power for the year 2022, climbing seven places to rank 83rd compared to last year's 90th position as it now has access 60 countries that don't require a prior visa.
Oman and Armenia are the latest latest destinations Indian passport holders can now visit without obtaining a visa compared to just 58 visa-free access destinations in Q4 2021. India has risen in the ranking by seven places due to visa access changes higher up on the index which has created new ties or places now held jointly by other nations that rank above it.

[AditiArora]

When two countries holding two spots in the ranking become two countries holding one spot, the result is that everyone beneath them goes up in rank. In practical terms, for instance, nothing actually got better for Turkey in terms of its visa-free access but it did improve its ranking — it's just a result of how the ranking powered by IATA data treats ties.

Over 12.8 million passports were issued in 2019 by the Passport Issuing Authorities (PIA) in India and abroad, making India the third largest passport issuer globally after China and the United States.

According to historical data from the Henley Passport Index, which ranks all the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa and is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), an individual could, on average, visit 57 countries in 2006 visa-free. Today, that number has risen to 107, but this overall increase masks a growing disparity between countries in the global north and those in the global south, with nationals from countries such as Sweden and the US able to visit more than 180 destinations visa-free, while passport holders from Angola, Cameroon, and Laos can only enter about 50.