India slipped one place to 144th in the first FIFA rankings of the year, released on Wednesday.
India and Yemen swapped places from the 2007 year-end chart and this also means India slipping one place to 27th among the AFC countries.
Despite the one-place loss, it is much a better rank for India as compared to last year beginning when India were ranked 157th in January 2007 chart.
Maldives are the next best South Asian country on 153rd while Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal are at 163rd, 167th, 168th and 186th, respectively.
Among the Asian countries, Japan (34)continued to lead the pack followed by Iran (41), Korea(41), Australia (48) and Saudi Arabia (57).
Meanwhile, Argentina remained the world's highest-ranked team and the rest of the top-15 was also unchanged.
Brazil, Italy, Spain and Germany followed Argentina at the top-five while Czech Republic, France, Portugal, the Netherlands and Croatia make up the lower top-10.