THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: WHERE DOES INDIA STAND?

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is one of the most definite and widely accepted goals by United Nations (UNs) as a result of discourse and deliberations among the member States. The global goals that seek to consider three dimensions of poverty i.e., social, economic and environmental dimensions to improve people’s lives and protect the planet for future generations. The article seeks to juxtapose 17 SDGs and the existing status of the goals of India in comparison with the South Asian countries. The study extensively used secondary sources of data to paint a quantitative picture of SDGs and the ranking given by various international agencies. Since the SDGs were adopted in September 2015, we may not get the impact as such. The purpose of the study is to give a summarised picture of goals so that future course of action can be drawn from the study. The study found nearly 21.9 per cent of the people in India live below poverty line. The situation of poverty is grim more particularly in rural areas, as around 25.7 per cent live below the poverty line. Among the South Asian countries, lowest poverty rate exists in Sri Lanka that stood at close to 7 per cent. The life expectancy rate of India is 68.3 years, which is even less than that of Bangladesh. The per capita income of India is $5,663 which is half of that of Sri Lanka. The literacy rate of India is 74 percent, Maldives on its way to achieve cent percent literacy rate. In the Human Development Index, India was ranked 131 among the list of countries. However, it is noteworthy that among South Asian countries, of 118 countries. India performed poorly in the Gender Development Index, managed to perform better than Pakistan and Afghanistan. India will have go long way to achieve 100 per cent access to clean drinking water and electricity. Starting business in India still not a good proposition and huge inequality persists in the income distribution. India’s position in crime index and pollution index is also not up to the mark. Global collaboration, engaging with countries of expertise will help in addressing these issues.


Introduction
The perennial problems of the world like poverty, famine, drought, wars, plague, epidemic, hunger, etc., drive the global leaders as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland, 1987). The cornerstone of the SDGs was laid in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in 2012 (also known as Rio+20) on Sustainable Development called "The Future We Want". The conference recognised the need for SDGs for addressing the three dimensions of poverty viz., economic, social and environmental. The conference put forwarded the ideas to promote coherent and focused actions so as to achieve sustainable development goals (Pinter et al., 2014;RIS, 2016). International financial institution World Bank termed SDGs as World Development Indictors (WDI) of global development and the quality of people's lives. The WDI are derived from numerous international agencies with the joint effort of national statistic offices and other development agencies (World Bank, 2016). To conclude, Sustainable Development Goals is a global set of goal on things to be done by different governments in the interest of the well-being of the entire world and humanity.
respectively. The Global Hunger Index report of 2016 ranking has placed India at 97 out of 118 countries. India performed poorly in the Gender Development Index, managed to perform better than Pakistan and Afghanistan. India will have go long way to achieve 100 per cent access to clean drinking water and electricity. Starting business in India still not a good proposition and huge inequality persists in the income distribution.

Rupak Das & Debabrata Das
In the year 2000, 189 countries came together at New York, USA to adopt United Nations Millennium Declaration and they committed to achieve eight development Goals by 2015. The objectives were: 1.
To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2.
To achieve universal primary education

Region-wise status of health, education, standard of living
As we have observed above that the progress of human development has been impressive over the preceding decades, yet the parameters of human development has been craggy and deprivations persists in the globe

Status of Health, Education, Standard of Living in South Asian Countries
South Asia is home to 1.8 billion people constituting 22.2 per cent of the world's population or about one-fourth of the world's population (Singh, 2008

Status of Poverty in South Asian Countries
The poverty scenario is very severe among South Asian countries. Apart from the Maldives, the population living below the poverty line ranges from 21 per cent to nearly 36 per cent. Thapa (2006) Table 3). The situation of poverty is grim more particularly in rural areas, as around 25.7 per cent of the people live in poverty line (United Nations, 2016). Amartya Sen (2000) argued that poverty is not only insufficient income, but it is the deprivation of various capabilities, which include security and ability to participate in economic as well as political systems. Sri Lanka has the lowest poverty rate among the South Asian countries standing at close to 7 per cent.
The report stated that in India around 45 and 33 per cent of deprivation contributed by low standard of living and poor health, respectively, followed by education close to 23 per cent. We can observe from Table 4  Even though India has improved its HDI rank from low in the 1990s to medium in 2015, the progress has been painfully slow because government expenditure on building social capital has been inadequate, given the extent of socio-economic deprivation. South Asia, which has the highest level of malnutrition in the world, also has the lowest public health

Status of Gender Equality
The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995 had proposed gender mainstreaming as a key strategy to reduce inequalities between women and men. Gender Latin America and Caribbean countries are doing desirable and stood at 0.981 among the list of regions, although the mean years of schooling is lower than Europe and Central Asia. Latin America and Caribbean countries fall under the group of very high gender development group 4 . South Asian countries are languishing at the bottom in terms of overall gender development scoring .822, although the life expectancy is higher than Sub-Saharan African region (Table 6). South Asian countries fall under the group of low gender development group. It is noteworthy that huge GNI per capita inequality persists between among all the regions. However, the life expectancy of female is higher as compared to males among all the regions. It is worth mentioning that mean years of schooling of female is lower than males among all the regions. Europe and Central Asia outperformed all other regions in respect to mean years schooling of females.
Sri Lanka performs better in terms of GDI among the South Asian countries. Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal found a place in the medium gender development group. Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are considered to be the low gender development countries. It is very pertinent to mention that no South Asian country could find a place in the very high or high gender development groups. Literacy rate of females in Maldives is almost equal to that of men and figured in the upmost list among South Asian countries. Afghanistan is languishing in the bottom of the list in terms of female literacy 6 (Table7).
Females are not adequately represented in the Parliament be it Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. Female members consist of 12 and 11 per cent in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, respectively (Table 8). It is noteworthy to mention that out of 4,120 Members of Legislative Assembly (MLA) seats, only 363 seats are held by female members i.e., close to 9 per cent seats are held by female members in the respective States. However, it is noteworthy to mention that the number of women in Parliament has increased from 5 per cent in 1 st Lok Sabha to 12 per cent in 16 th Lok Sabha (Election Commission of India, 2014).
It is observed that (Table 9) gender-wise employment is much skewed as females are not adequately represented in the organised sector of India. Although, the representation of females in private sector is higher than public sector as closed to 24 per cent, females are engaged in private sector compared to around 18 per cent in public sector.

Status of Clean water
Access to clean water and sanitation are among the top priorities in very high human development countries (United Nations, 2016). UN reported that 40 per cent of population of the world is affected by scarcity of water and this causes more than 800 children die every day due to water and sanitation related disease. The UN recognises access to safe drinking water and sanitation as an important element of human health and notes that lack of access to water and sanitation especially affected the rights of children and women. Many studies have found that lack of access to water and sanitation are the reason behind under-nutrition and anaemia in women (RIS, 2016).

Status of Access to Energy
The Global Tracking Framework (GTF),

Status of the Economy
The economic reform of 1991 has given luminosity to the India's economy. Since economic liberalisation even though there has been a tremendous improvement in India's per capita income, growth has been lopsided and income disparities and regional imbalances continue to exist. For measuring the status of economy of the country, we have considered the South Asian Economic Focus (SAEF) report and World Economic Outlook Database of International Monetary Fund, 2016. The report stated that the India is expected to grow at 7.6 per cent by 2017 through maintaining strong consumption and increasing investment.
Bhutan and India are the fastest growing economies in the South Asian region and are growing at the rate of 8.4 and 7.5 per cent, respectively. India's economy outnumbered all the countries in the South Asian region and figured as the second largest economy in the Asian continent. It is noteworthy to mention that Bhutan is growing at 8.4 per cent and is considered to be the highest in terms of GDP growth. However, Bhutan recorded a current account deficit of 24.9 per cent of the country's GDP in 2016. The growing unemployment rate 5 is a major headache for all the South Asian countries. Afghanistan is having the highest rate of unemployment followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh. Only Nepal recorded current account surplus among the list of South Asian countries.

Status of Resilient Infrastructure and Sustainable Industrialisations
The competitiveness of manufacturing industry is one of the basic determinants of long-run sustainable growth and it is important for achieving socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable economic development. Keeping in view of the importance of the same, it is of great significance to understand countries' relative positions on this metric. For measuring the status of industrialisation, we have considered the Composite Industrial Performance (CIP) Index, 2016 of United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and ease of doing business rank provided by World Bank, 2016.

Status of Income Inequality
After the new economic policy of 1991, Indian economy has witnessed a growth in the last two decades. Nevertheless, poverty and inequality remain a major concern to policymakers. Sustained growth is a necessary condition for poverty reduction but not sufficient, as inequality plays an important role here (Ali and Son, 2007). Inequality not only slows down the growth process but also hinders the process of poverty reduction.
While Indian policymakers have been giving considerable attention to reduction of poverty, all the government schemes revolve around elimination of poverty in India (Referring to

Status of Access to Sustainable Housing and Making Cities Safe and Resilient for Human Settlements
Habitat for Humanity estimated (2015) that 1 Accordingly, score is given based on those parameters. Note: Countries with maximum crime given high score and countries with safety given high score on safety.  (Table 15). Pollution index (high weight is given to air pollution than water pollution) is an estimation of the overall pollution in the country.

Status of Marine Ecosystem and Forest Coverage
Marine pollution refers to contamination and presence of pollutant particles in seas/

Status of the Inclusive Societies
The

The Way Forward
India, being a welfare State, has the primary responsibility to take care of its people and play a key role in the protection and promotion of economic and social wellbeing of its citizens. It is evident that the Government of India needs to spend more