Based on the scoring on SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) India Index, the NITI Aayog has classified various States into certain categories. Which one of the following is not one of the categories?

Correct — C, Fast runners. The question asks which label NITI Aayog does not use, so the answer is the invented one. The SDG India Index scores every State and Union Territory from 0 to 100 on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and then sorts them into four bands: Aspirant for a score below 50, Performer for 50 to 64, Front Runner for 65 to 99, and Achiever for a score of 100, which means the 2030 target has already been met. Aspirants, Performers and Achievers are all on that list. Fast runners is not — the band above Performer is Front Runner, and the two are easy to confuse because both borrow the same running metaphor.

• (a)Aspirants — Aspirant is the lowest band, for a composite score below 50, so it is one of the categories and cannot be the answer to a question asking which is not.
• (b)Performers — Performer covers scores from 50 to 64 and is the band immediately below Front Runner. It is a real category.
• (d)Achievers — Achiever is the top band, reserved for a score of 100 on a goal, meaning the 2030 target has been reached. It is a real category, and States do reach it on individual goals even though none has reached it on the composite score.

The SDG India Index, first published by NITI Aayog in December 2018 and revised in successive editions, measures each State and Union Territory against the Sustainable Development Goals using indicators drawn from official statistics. Every goal is scored out of 100 and the goal scores are combined into a composite score, on which the four-band classification is applied. The index is India's principal instrument for making the goals a matter of comparison between States rather than a national aggregate.

The exam-hall route is to notice which three of the four options sound like an official band and which one does not quite fit. The real ladder is Aspirant, Performer, Front Runner, Achiever, and its logic is a progression from wanting to arriving. Fast runner breaks that logic — it describes speed of improvement, whereas every real band describes the level reached. That distinction is worth remembering, because the index does not classify States by how fast they are moving. Anchored to the 2022 exam, the current edition was the one covering 2020-21, and the same four bands have been carried forward in later editions, including the 2023-24 index.

• The four categories are Aspirant, Performer, Front Runner and Achiever.
• Score bands are Aspirant 0 to 49, Performer 50 to 64, Front Runner 65 to 99 and Achiever 100.
• The index is compiled by NITI Aayog and scores every State and Union Territory on the Sustainable Development Goals.
• The first edition appeared in December 2018; the edition current at the 2022 exam covered 2020-21.
• A score of 100 on a goal means the 2030 target for that goal has already been reached.

• Answering a category that does exist because it looks familiar. The stem asks for the one that does not.
• Substituting Fast runner for Front Runner; the running word is the same, the meaning is not.
• Assuming Achiever is unattainable. No State has reached it on the composite score, but goal-level scores of 100 do occur.

As an odd-one-out on the categories, as a question on which States sit at the top or the bottom, or as a match of index to publishing body.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the SDG India Index, a State with a composite score of 72 falls into which category?

  • (a)Aspirant
  • (b)Performer
  • (c)Front Runner
  • (d)Achiever

  Answer(c) Front Runner — the band runs from 65 to 99; below 50 is Aspirant, 50 to 64 Performer and exactly 100 Achiever.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The SDG India Index is published by which body?

  • (a)Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
  • (b)NITI Aayog
  • (c)Reserve Bank of India
  • (d)Finance Commission

  Answer(b) NITI Aayog — it has released the index since December 2018, in collaboration with the United Nations in India.