Earlier this year, a video by an Indian travel influencer complaining about India’s weak passport went viral on social media.
He said that while neighbouring countries like Bhutan and Sri Lanka were more welcoming of Indian tourists, getting visas to travel to most Western and European countries remained a challenge.
His dissatisfaction with India’s poor passport strength was reflected in the latest Henley Passport Index - a ranking system of the world’s passports based on visa-free travel - which placed India in the 85th spot out of 199 countries, five spots lower than last year.
The Indian government has not commented on the report yet. The BBC has reached out to the ministry of external affairs.
can’t speak for other countries but I can tell you first hand that Canada has REALLY soured on India and Indians. Many view Indians as exploiting student visas in order to gain PR status, an unwillingness to acclimatize to Canada, taking jobs and housing, etc. Also doesn’t help that a year or two ago a couple people working for the Indian government murdered a Sikh Canadian in BC thus many Canadians want nothing to do with India and were angry with Prime Minister Carney this past week after he tried to fix relations with India.