What is India's position in the Sustainable Development Goals Index released in 2020 ?

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Correct — option (1), 117th, is India's ranking in the global Sustainable Development Report (Sustainable Development Goals Index) for 2020, prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung. India was placed 117th among the countries assessed, with an overall index score of roughly 61.9%, meaning the country was estimated to have achieved just under two-thirds of the way towards full attainment of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals on the composite measures used. This global index should not be confused with NITI Aayog's separate 'SDG India Index,' which ranks India's own states and union territories against each other rather than ranking countries globally — the question here asks about India's position as a country, which is the SDSN/Bertelsmann global ranking, and 117th is the figure that index reported for 2020.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) This number is easy to confuse with the count of Sustainable Development Goals themselves — there are 17 SDGs — but it is not India's rank in the 2020 index. Mistaking the total number of goals for a country's ranking position is a natural but incorrect association for a candidate who has memorised 'SDG' as shorthand for '17 goals' without separately tracking India's actual index standing.  (c) 40th is not India's position in the 2020 global SDG Index; it does not correspond to any commonly cited figure for India in this index around this period and appears here simply as a plausible middling rank a candidate might guess at without having the actual number.  (d) 125th is not India's 2020 ranking; it overstates how far down the list India stood that year. India's rank fluctuated across nearby years of this same index (for instance, dropping to around 120th in a subsequent year's edition), so a candidate who recalls a broadly similar but different year's figure could mistakenly select this number for 2020 specifically.

Concept: The global Sustainable Development Report, published annually by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) together with the Bertelsmann Stiftung, ranks nearly all UN member states on a composite index measuring progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015. It is distinct from NITI Aayog's domestically focused 'SDG India Index,' which instead ranks India's states and union territories against one another using India-specific indicators. In the 2020 edition of the global report, India ranked 117th with a score of roughly 61.9%, reflecting persistent gaps on goals such as poverty, hunger, gender equality and environmental sustainability even as the country made progress on others.

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