MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 31 of 100

Correct — option (3), Both the options. Only two statements are printed here, labelled (a) and (b), and the key treats both as correct. Statement (a) reproduces the headline finding of NITI Aayog's SDG India Index for 2020 to 2021 exactly: India's composite score stood at 66, having been 60 in the 2019 to 2020 edition and 57 in the baseline-plus edition of 2018 to 2019. A six-point gain in a single year is large for a composite index of this kind, and the report attributed it chiefly to the country's performance on Goal 6, on clean water and sanitation, and Goal 7, on affordable and clean energy, where the goal scores were the strongest in the whole index. The improvement showed up in the distribution of states as well as in the national number, since the count of states and union territories in the Front Runner band, meaning a score between 65 and 99, rose to twenty-two from ten in the previous edition. Statement (b) reports the same edition's other widely quoted finding — that despite 2020 to 2021 being a pandemic year, India performed well on eight of the goals covered by the index, the eight generally listed being good health and well-being, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, life on land, and peace, justice and strong institutions. The word despite carries the sense of the statement: the index's reference period overlapped the first year of the pandemic, when much of the underlying data collection and much of the activity being measured were disrupted, and the finding of gains across a majority of goals was reported as notable for that reason. It is worth adding one clarification, not as a challenge to the statement but so that the underlying facts are held correctly: the 2020 to 2021 edition of the index itself tracked 115 indicators covering 16 of the 17 goals, with Goal 17 on partnerships assessed qualitatively rather than scored, so the denominator of fifteen in statement (b) comes from the commentary the statement reproduces rather than from the index's own coverage count. Nor was the progress uniform — the same edition recorded declines on the goals concerning decent work and economic growth and industry, innovation and infrastructure, which is exactly what a pandemic year would be expected to produce. Both printed statements being correct, option (3) is the answer.

• (1)Only (a) — This option accepts statement (a) and rejects statement (b). It is the choice of a candidate who has memorised the three scores — 66, 60 and 57 — and is unwilling to accept a second statement whose numbers are less familiar. The reasoning is understandable but wrong twice over. First, the second statement is a genuine and widely reported finding of the same edition of the index, so there is nothing to reject. Second, the instinct itself is the problem: in a two-statement question the candidate is being asked to judge each statement independently, and refusing a statement merely because it is unfamiliar converts an assessment into a guess. Where a statement reports a qualitative finding rather than a number, the test to apply is whether it is consistent with what is known of the same source, and a report of improvement across a majority of goals is exactly consistent with a six-point rise in the composite score.
• (2)Only (b) — This option accepts statement (b) and rejects the composite scores in statement (a), which is the harder error to defend because those three figures are the most quoted numbers in the entire report. India's score of 66 in 2020 to 2021, up from 60 in 2019 to 2020 and 57 in 2018 to 2019, appears in NITI Aayog's own release and was repeated in the Economic Survey. A candidate who rejects the statement is usually doing so because he recalls a different number from a different edition of the index — the fourth edition, for 2023 to 2024, put India at 71 — and has not noticed which edition the stem names. Index scores are revised and re-based between editions and the series is only meaningful when each figure is attached to its year, which is precisely why the statement lists all three years rather than one.
• (4)None of the options — This option rejects both statements, and it is untenable because each of them reports a documented finding of the SDG India Index for 2020 to 2021. It is chosen by a candidate who has not read the report at all and prefers a clean rejection to a coin toss, and occasionally by one who has noticed a genuine imprecision in the second statement — the index covered sixteen goals with a qualitative assessment on the seventeenth, so the denominator of fifteen is the commentary's rather than the report's — and has over-generalised from that observation to reject everything on the page. A single loose figure inside one statement is not a reason to reject a second statement that is precisely and verifiably correct, and it is not enough to overturn the substance of the first. Judge each statement on its own, and reject only what actually fails.

The SDG India Index is the country's principal instrument for measuring progress on the Sustainable Development Goals at the national and, more importantly, the sub-national level. It is prepared by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the United Nations in India, and its distinctive contribution is that it scores every state and union territory as well as the country, which turns a global goal framework into an instrument of comparison and competition between Indian states. Each goal is scored from zero to one hundred against national targets, the goal scores are combined into a composite score on the same scale, and states are placed in bands: Aspirant from zero to forty-nine, Performer from fifty to sixty-four, Front Runner from sixty-five to ninety-nine, and Achiever at one hundred. The coverage has widened with each edition, which is why scores are not strictly comparable across editions and why the report itself presents the series with care: the baseline edition of 2018 covered thirteen goals through sixty-two indicators, the 2019 to 2020 edition covered sixteen goals through one hundred indicators, and the 2020 to 2021 edition covered sixteen goals and seventy targets through one hundred and fifteen indicators, with Goal 17 on partnerships assessed qualitatively rather than scored. In the 2020 to 2021 edition India scored 66, with Kerala leading the states and the number of Front Runners rising to twenty-two; the strongest goal scores were on clean water and sanitation and on affordable and clean energy, and the clearest declines were on decent work and economic growth and on industry, innovation and infrastructure — the two goals most exposed to the economic contraction of the pandemic year. The index sits within a wider architecture in which the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation maintains the National Indicator Framework, states build their own indicator frameworks, and NITI Aayog acts as the nodal institution for the goals in India.

The SDG India Index is examined every year by several commissions, and MPSC's interest in it is sharpened by the fact that the index ranks states, which makes Maharashtra's own position and band a natural question. The Commission tests it in three shapes: the national composite score for a stated edition, the top or bottom states, and a factual claim about coverage or method. This item is the first shape, dressed as a two-statement question. Two habits are worth taking from it. The first is that an index figure means nothing without its edition, because each edition changes the indicator set and the composite score is rebuilt on the new set; a candidate who remembers 66 without remembering that it belongs to 2020 to 2021 will be defeated by a stem naming a different year, since the same index has also reported 57, 60 and 71. The second is a reading habit specific to this paper: statement lists are frequently shorter than four items, and this question prints only two, labelled (a) and (b). The options are correspondingly written as only (a), only (b), both the options and none of the options, and a candidate who has begun hunting for statements (c) and (d) will read those options against the wrong expectation. Read the labels, count the statements, and then read the options as they are printed rather than as they are usually printed.

• In NITI Aayog's SDG India Index for 2020 to 2021, India's composite score was 66, having been 60 in the 2019 to 2020 edition and 57 in the 2018 to 2019 edition.
• The 2020 to 2021 edition tracked 115 indicators covering 70 targets across 16 of the 17 goals, with Goal 17 on partnerships assessed qualitatively rather than scored; earlier editions covered fewer goals and fewer indicators, so scores are not strictly comparable across editions.
• The number of states and union territories in the Front Runner band, meaning a composite score between 65 and 99, rose to twenty-two in 2020 to 2021 from ten in the previous edition, with Kerala the leading state.
• The strongest goal performances in that edition were on Goal 6, clean water and sanitation, and Goal 7, affordable and clean energy, while the clearest declines were on the goals concerning decent work and economic growth and industry, innovation and infrastructure.
• The index is prepared by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the United Nations in India, and it scores every state and union territory in bands running from Aspirant through Performer and Front Runner to Achiever.

• Quoting an index score without its edition, when the same index has reported 57, 60, 66 and 71 in successive editions and each figure belongs to one year only
• Rejecting a statement because its numbers are less familiar than those in the statement beside it, which converts an independent judgement of each statement into a guess
• Assuming a statement list runs to four items, when this question prints only two and the options are correspondingly worded as only (a), only (b), both the options and none of the options
• Treating the composite score as evidence of uniform progress, when the same edition recorded declines on the goals covering decent work and economic growth and industry, innovation and infrastructure

Reports and indices are among the most reliably examined current affairs topics, and the SDG India Index is set more often than most because it produces a fresh number and a fresh state ranking every year. The usual shapes are the national score for a named edition, the leading and trailing states, the publishing body, and a statement about the index's coverage or method. The last of these is the most discriminating, because it cannot be answered from a headline and requires the candidate to have looked at how the index is built. Questions are almost always set from the edition released shortly before the examination, so a candidate should revise the most recent edition in detail and hold only the headline scores for earlier ones. Because MPSC sets a state paper, expect a Maharashtra angle — the state's score, its band, or its rank among the states — attached to the same report.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the SDG India Index prepared by NITI Aayog, a state with a composite score of 68 would be placed in which category ?

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

  Answer(c) Front Runner. The bands used by the index are Aspirant for scores from zero to forty-nine, Performer for fifty to sixty-four, Front Runner for sixty-five to ninety-nine, and Achiever only at a score of one hundred, which means every national target for that goal has been met. The band structure is worth memorising exactly, because the index reports movement between bands as its main measure of progress and a question can be built either from a score or from a change in category.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which body prepares the SDG India Index, and with which partners is it produced ?

  • (a)The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, with the World Bank
  • (b)NITI Aayog, in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the United Nations in India
  • (c)The United Nations Development Programme, with the Ministry of External Affairs
  • (d)The Reserve Bank of India, with the Ministry of Finance

  Answer(b) NITI Aayog, in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the United Nations in India. NITI Aayog is the nodal institution for the Sustainable Development Goals in India, while the statistics ministry maintains the National Indicator Framework from which much of the underlying data is drawn. Keeping the two apart matters, because a question can be set on either, and the framework and the index are different instruments serving different purposes.