Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : There is a positive relationship between Human Development Index (HDI) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ranking of Indian States. Reason (R) : The underlying dimensions of SDG targets are closely related to education and health aspects. Select the correct answer from the codes given below :
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).
- (b)(A) is false, but (R) is true.
- (c)Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).
- (d)(A) is true, but (R) is false.
Correct — C, both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). Take the Assertion first. The published rankings do move together: Kerala, which has long recorded the best human-development indicators of any Indian State, topped NITI Aayog's SDG India Index in 2019-20 and again in 2020-21, with Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu immediately behind — the same States that lead on literacy, schooling and life expectancy. At the other end, Bihar came last in the 2020-21 index, and Uttar Pradesh scored 55 in 2019-20, up from about 42 in the 2018 baseline, moving from the 'Aspirant' band into 'Performer'. High human development and a high SDG score go together; low goes with low. That is a positive relationship, so (A) is true. Now the Reason, and it is true as well. The HDI is a composite of three equally weighted dimensions — a long and healthy life measured by life expectancy at birth, knowledge measured by mean and expected years of schooling, and a decent standard of living measured by GNI per capita at purchasing power parity. Two of those three are health and education. The SDG framework is dominated by the same content: SDG 3 is good health and well-being and SDG 4 is quality education, in their own right, while health and education indicators also drive SDG 1 (poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation). The last step is what the item is really testing. (R) is not merely a second true sentence sitting beside (A) — it names the mechanism. Because the two composites are built out of heavily overlapping raw indicators, a State that performs well on one is close to arithmetically bound to perform well on the other; the correlation follows from shared content, not from coincidence. A reason that supplies the cause of the assertion is 'the correct explanation', so the answer is (c) and not (a). Exam-day anchor: the paper was written on 22 December 2024, when the current edition was the SDG India Index 2023-24, released by NITI Aayog in July 2024.
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). — This is the trap, and it catches the careful candidate rather than the careless one. Both statements are indeed true, so a student who verifies each and then stops chooses this. But an Assertion-Reason item has a third step: ask whether (R) causes (A). Here it does — health and education dominate the SDG targets and are two of the HDI's three pillars, so overlapping measurement is precisely why the two rankings track each other. Since (R) explains (A), (a) understates the relationship.
- (b)(A) is false, but (R) is true. — (A) is supported by the actual published tables. Kerala led the SDG India Index in 2019-20 and 2020-21 and also leads on human-development indicators; Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu follow on both; Bihar was last on the SDG index in 2020-21 and is also among the weakest on human development. Denying the relationship means denying the rankings themselves.
- (d)(A) is true, but (R) is false. — (R) is plainly true. Health and education are not peripheral to the Sustainable Development Goals — SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 4 (quality education) are two of the seventeen goals, and health and education indicators carry substantial weight in NITI Aayog's composite score. Calling (R) false requires ignoring the goal list.
Two different measuring instruments are being compared. The Human Development Index, introduced by UNDP in the 1990 Human Development Report — Mahbub ul Haq's design, resting on Amartya Sen's capability approach — is the geometric mean of health (life expectancy at birth), knowledge (mean and expected years of schooling) and standard of living (GNI per capita, PPP); inequality is deliberately left out and handled by the separate Inequality-adjusted HDI. NITI Aayog's SDG India Index, first published in 2018 and the country's nodal instrument for tracking the 2030 Agenda, scores every State and Union Territory from 0 to 100 and sorts them into four bands: Aspirant 0-49, Performer 50-64, Front Runner 65-99, Achiever 100. Built for different purposes, they end up measuring much the same underlying capabilities.
Work an Assertion-Reason item in three steps, never two. Step one: is (A) true on its own? Step two: is (R) true on its own? Step three — the step that decides most UPPSC A-R questions — does (R) state the cause of (A), or is it just another fact about the same subject? The tell here is the word 'dimensions'. (R) says the underlying dimensions of the SDG targets are education and health; (A) says the two rankings move together. Shared dimensions are exactly why rankings correlate, so the third answer is yes. Candidates who default to 'both true but not the explanation' whenever they are unsure lose this mark. It is worth adding the honest limit: a positive relationship is not a perfect one, because the SDG index also scores things the HDI never touches — clean energy, industry and infrastructure, climate action, life on land — so individual States can and do sit a few ranks apart on the two lists.
- HDI dimensions: health (life expectancy at birth), knowledge (mean and expected years of schooling) and standard of living (GNI per capita, PPP) — two of the three are health and education, which is the whole force of the Reason.
- SDG India Index bands: Aspirant 0-49, Performer 50-64, Front Runner 65-99, Achiever 100; the index is prepared by NITI Aayog, the nodal institution for the SDGs in India.
- Kerala topped the SDG India Index in 2019-20 and again in 2020-21; Bihar was last in 2020-21 — the same ordering that State human-development rankings show.
- Uttar Pradesh scored 55 in the 2019-20 index and was classed a 'Performer', up from about 42 ('Aspirant') in the 2018 baseline edition.
- The edition current on exam day, 22 December 2024, was the SDG India Index 2023-24, released by NITI Aayog in July 2024.
- SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 4 (quality education) are goals in their own right, and health and education indicators also feed SDGs 1, 2, 5 and 6 — which is why the SDG composite overlaps so heavily with HDI content.
The two highlighted rows are the mechanism the Reason names: health and education are two of the HDI's three pillars and two of the seventeen SDGs outright. Shared content produces the correlation, which is why the key is (c) — (R) is the correct explanation of (A) — and not (a).
- Defaulting to 'both true but (R) is not the correct explanation' whenever both statements check out. Always ask the third question — does (R) give the cause?
- Assuming the HDI includes inequality or environmental quality. It does not; inequality is measured by the separate Inequality-adjusted HDI, and the SDG index covers environmental goals the HDI ignores.
- Overstating the Assertion into 'the two rankings are identical'. It claims only a positive relationship — States can differ by a few ranks because the SDG index scores energy, infrastructure and climate too.
UPPSC has now set this exact Assertion-Reason pair twice — in 2019 and again, with the options merely reshuffled, in 2024. It also likes single-fact SDG index questions ('in which band was Uttar Pradesh placed'). UPSC prefers the HDI's composition and the 2030 Agenda's basic facts.
Human Development Index comprises literacy rates, life expectancy at birth and
- (a) Gross Domestic Product per head in US dollars
- (b) Gross Domestic Product per head at real purchasing power
- (c) Gross National Product in US dollars
- (d) National Income per head in US dollars
Answer(b) Gross Domestic Product per head at real purchasing power
Fixes the Reason in place — the HDI is literacy and life expectancy plus a living-standard measure, i.e. education and health are two of its three pillars, which is exactly why State HDI and State SDG scores track each other.
Consider the following statements: 1. The Sustainable Development Goals were first proposed in 1972 by a global think tank called the 'Club of Rome'. 2. The Sustainable Development Goals have to be achieved by 2030. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(b) 2 only
The other half of this question's furniture: what the Sustainable Development Goals are and the 2030 deadline, which a candidate must have straight before judging whether health and education 'underlie' the SDG targets.
Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : There is a positive relation between Human Development Index (HDI) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) ranking of Indian State. Reason (R) : The underlying dimensions of SDG targets are closely related to education and health aspects. Select the correct answer from the codes given below :
- (a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
- (b) Both (A) and (R) are true but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (c) (A) is true, but (R) is false
- (d) (A) is false, but (R) is true
Answer(a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
The same question, repeated. UPPSC set this identical Assertion-Reason pair in 2019 with only the option order changed, and the answer was the same — both true, (R) the correct explanation. The strongest possible evidence that UPPSC recycles its own Assertion-Reason items nearly verbatim.
Which of the following indicators is NOT used to calculate Human Development Index (HDI) ?
- (a) Life Expectancy
- (b) Education
- (c) Per Capita Income
- (d) Social Inequality
Answer(d) Social Inequality
Pins down what the HDI does and does not contain — health, education and per capita income, but not inequality — which is the factual base on which the Reason rests.
According to the Report released by NITI Aayog in December 2019 on 'Sustainable Development Goals India Index 2019-20', the Uttar Pradesh is grouped under which of the following categories?
- (a) Aspirant
- (b) Performer
- (c) Front runner
- (d) Achiever
Answer(b) Performer
Supplies the evidence for the Assertion in UPPSC's own words: Uttar Pradesh was placed in the 'Performer' band of the SDG India Index 2019-20, matching its middling position on human-development indicators.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In NITI Aayog's SDG India Index, a State scoring 68 on the composite score would be classified in which category?
- (a)Aspirant
- (b)Performer
- (c)Front Runner
- (d)Achiever
Answer(c) Front Runner — the bands are Aspirant 0-49, Performer 50-64, Front Runner 65-99 and Achiever 100, so a score of 68 falls in the Front Runner band.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is NOT a dimension used in computing the Human Development Index?
- (a)Life expectancy at birth
- (b)Mean and expected years of schooling
- (c)Gross National Income per capita at purchasing power parity
- (d)Carbon dioxide emissions per capita
Answer(d) Carbon dioxide emissions per capita — the HDI uses only health, education and standard of living; emissions enter the UNDP's separate Planetary pressures-adjusted HDI (PHDI), not the HDI itself.