Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : Sustainable development should take place without damaging the environment and development in the present time should not compromise with the needs of the future generations. Reason (R) : Agenda 21 was signed by world leaders in 1995. Select the correct answer from the code given below : Code :
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)
- (b)(A) is true, but (R) is false
- (c)(A) is false, but (R) is true
- (d)Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)
Correct — B, (A) is true, but (R) is false. The Assertion is simply the standard definition of sustainable development, almost word for word: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. That formulation comes from Our Common Future, the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by the Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland — which is why it is universally called the Brundtland definition. It is true. The Reason fails on its date. Agenda 21 was adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit, held at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 — not in 1995. Nothing about that document belongs to 1995; the year the Reason names holds other things entirely, such as the first Conference of the Parties to the climate convention at Berlin and the World Summit for Social Development at Copenhagen, but not Agenda 21. Note also that the '21' in Agenda 21 refers to the twenty-first century the plan was written for, not to any year, and that even a date-corrected Reason would not explain the Assertion: the Brundtland definition is from 1987 and so predates Agenda 21 by five years. A cause cannot follow its effect. Finally, read the printed code before you tick anything on this paper. This booklet inverts the familiar UPSC arrangement — here (a) means both true but (R) is NOT the explanation, and (d) means both true and (R) IS the explanation. Option (b) happens to read the same in both layouts, so the inversion does not bite on this particular question, but it bites on the other nineteen assertion-reason items in this paper.
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A) — Correct about the explanatory relationship but wrong about the facts, which is not enough. The Reason is not true: Agenda 21 belongs to the Rio Earth Summit of June 1992, not to 1995. Once a statement carries a wrong date it is false, and the question stops before the explanation test is reached. Be aware too that in this booklet option (a) does not carry its usual UPSC meaning — here it is the 'both true, R does NOT explain A' slot, the reverse of what most candidates have drilled.
- (c)(A) is false, but (R) is true — Gets both halves the wrong way round. The Assertion is the settled Brundtland definition of sustainable development from Our Common Future (1987) and is plainly true, while the Reason misdates Agenda 21 by three years and is false. This option is picked by candidates who half-remember that Agenda 21 is a genuine Rio document and, seeing a familiar name, wave the Reason through without checking its year.
- (d)Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A) — Fails twice over. The Reason is false on its date, so 'both true' is already wrong; and even with the date repaired the logic would not hold, because Agenda 21 was adopted at Rio in 1992 while the definition in the Assertion was published in the Brundtland report of 1987. A document cannot be the reason for a definition that already existed five years before it. This is also the option in this booklet that means 'R IS the explanation' — the slot that reads as (a) on a normal UPSC paper.
Sustainable development entered global policy through the World Commission on Environment and Development, set up by the United Nations in 1983 and chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland. Its 1987 report, Our Common Future, defined the idea as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs — the phrasing quoted in the Assertion. Five years later the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit, met at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 and turned the idea into a programme. Rio produced the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the Statement of Forest Principles and Agenda 21, a comprehensive non-binding action plan for sustainable development in the twenty-first century, and it opened the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity for signature.
Assertion-reason items in environment are usually settled by a date, and this one is no exception. Test each statement on its own before you go anywhere near the explanation test. The Assertion is a definition every candidate has read, so it passes at once. The Reason attaches a real document to a wrong year, and that single error decides the question — which is why building a short, hard chronology of the sustainable-development calendar is worth more here than any amount of conceptual reading. Stockholm 1972, Brundtland report 1987, Montreal Protocol in force 1989, Rio Earth Summit 1992, UNCCD 1994, Rio+5 in 1997, Johannesburg 2002, Rio+20 in 2012, Sustainable Development Goals 2015, Paris Agreement 2015. Then note the deeper point the question also rewards: Agenda 21 is a consequence of the sustainable-development idea, not its cause, so it could never be the reason the definition holds.
- The definition in the Assertion is the Brundtland definition, published in Our Common Future (1987), the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland
- Agenda 21 is a non-binding global action plan for sustainable development adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development — the Earth Summit — at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, not in 1995
- The '21' in Agenda 21 refers to the twenty-first century for which the plan was written, not to a year
- Rio 1992 also produced the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Statement of Forest Principles, and opened the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity for signature
- The UN Convention to Combat Desertification is grouped with those as a Rio Convention but was adopted separately at Paris on 17 June 1994, following a recommendation of Agenda 21
- The follow-ups run Rio+5 (UN General Assembly Special Session, 1997), the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg in 2002, and Rio+20 at Rio de Janeiro in 2012, whose outcome document The Future We Want began the process that produced the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015
- Reading '21' in Agenda 21 as a year. It denotes the twenty-first century; the document itself is from Rio, June 1992
- In this booklet the assertion-reason code is inverted — (a) is 'both true, R does NOT explain A' and (d) is 'both true and R IS the explanation'. Option (b) reads identically in both layouts, but on the paper's other nineteen assertion-reason items the difference decides the mark
- Confusing the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 with the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg in 2002, which reaffirmed Agenda 21 rather than creating it
UPPSC asks this area either as an assertion-reason pair, as here and in 2019, or as a one-line factual link — in 2023 it simply asked what Agenda 21 of the Rio Summit, 1992 relates to. UPSC prefers two-statement items that test whether you can place a document at the right conference and the right year, and one-line questions on the conceptual content of the Brundtland definition.
With reference to 'Agenda 21', sometimes seen in the news, consider the following statements: 1. It is a global action plan for sustainable development. 2. It originated in the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. 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(a) 1 only
The Reason of this question, set as a question in its own right. UPSC offered exactly the same temptation — attaching Agenda 21 to the wrong summit — and marked that statement false. Agenda 21 is a global action plan for sustainable development, but it came out of Rio in 1992, which is what makes the 1995 date in the present Reason fatal.
Sustainable development is described as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In this perspective, inherently the concept of sustainable development is intertwined with which of the following concepts ?
- (a) Social justice and empowerment
- (b) Inclusive Growth
- (c) Globalization
- (d) Carrying capacity
Answer(d) Carrying capacity
Quotes the Assertion of this question verbatim as its own stem and then asks what the idea is tied to. It is the cleanest confirmation available that the sentence in the Assertion is the accepted definition of sustainable development, and it pushes one step further into the concept of carrying capacity.
The "Agenda – 21" of Rio Summit, 1992 is related to -
- (a) Preservation of ozone layer
- (b) Sustainable development
- (c) Polluter – Pays principle
- (d) Environmental education
Answer(b) Sustainable development
UPPSC's own answer to the date question. Two years before the present paper the commission asked what Agenda 21 of the Rio Summit, 1992 relates to — printing the year 1992 in the stem itself. A candidate who had worked that question could not have accepted 1995 here.
Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : Sustainable development is important for well being of human society. Reason (R) : Sustainable development is a kind of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 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 assertion-reason pair on sustainable development, six years earlier — and the perfect illustration of the code problem in this paper. In 2019 the Reason was the Brundtland definition itself, both statements were true, and the answer was (a) under the STANDARD layout in which (a) means 'R IS the explanation'. In 2025 that meaning has moved to (d). Same commission, same topic, opposite code — which is why you must read the printed options every time.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The definition of sustainable development as 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' was given in which one of the following?
- (a)The Limits to Growth (1972)
- (b)Our Common Future, the Brundtland Report (1987)
- (c)Agenda 21 (1992)
- (d)The Future We Want (2012)
Answer(b) Our Common Future, the Brundtland Report (1987) — the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Agenda 21 was adopted at which one of the following conferences?
- (a)UN Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972
- (b)UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1992
- (c)World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, 2002
- (d)UN Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio de Janeiro, 2012
Answer(b) UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1992 — the Earth Summit, which also produced the Rio Declaration and opened the UNFCCC and CBD for signature.