India’s Focus on Sustainable Development Goals and Its Human Development – Issues and Challenges

Abstract

        On 9^th & 10^th September, 2023, New Delhi hosted the G-20 Summit, which focused on accelerating the full and effective implementation of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. Following this, an ‘SDG Summit’ was convened at the United Nations headquarters on 18^th & 19^th September, 2023, to review and assess the implementation of the Agenda and the progress made on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Building on the outcomes of the 2023 SDG Summit, a ‘Summit of the Future’ took place at the UN headquarters from 23^rd & 24^th September, 2024, where member nations reiterated their commitments. In this context, it is pertinent to examine India's progress in human development since 1990, based on the UNDP’s latest Human Development Report (HDR). As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen noted in his book ‘Development as Freedom,’ development is a process of expanding the real freedoms that people can enjoy. In his ‘Capability Approach,’ he emphasizes that the core concern of human development is our ability to lead lives we have reason to value. Achieving freedom from hunger and ill health, along with promoting gender and income equality and ensuring access to quality education, contributes to human development and, consequently, to sustainable development.