Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R). Assertion (A) : India's success is critical for the global success of Sustainable Development Goals. Reason (R) : India accounts for nearly one-sixth of the total world population. 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 — D, Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). The Assertion is true: the 2030 Agenda's targets are global aggregates — the number of people in poverty, the number undernourished, the number without safe sanitation, the maternal and infant mortality counts — and they are simply the world's national numbers added up. The Reason is also true: India is the world's most populous country, home to roughly one-sixth of humanity (about 1.4 billion of some 8 billion people; India overtook China during 2023). And the Reason is precisely why the Assertion holds. When a single country carries about a sixth of the world's people, its performance moves the global indicator all by itself: if India misses a target the world arithmetically cannot hit it, and when India improves the global number improves. That is a causal link, not a coincidence — so the answer is not merely 'both true' but 'both true AND R explains A'.
- (a)Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A) — This is the trap option, and it is the one that catches candidates who treat every assertion-reason pair as unconnected by default. Both halves are indeed true, but the population share is not an incidental fact sitting beside the assertion — it is the mechanism behind it. Global SDG indicators are head-counts of people, so a country holding about a sixth of those people determines a sixth of the answer. R therefore does explain A.
- (b)(A) is true, but (R) is false — The Reason is factually correct. India's population is about 1.4 billion against a world population of roughly 8 billion — close to one-sixth (about 17 per cent), and India has been the world's most populous country since 2023. There is nothing false in R.
- (c)(A) is false, but (R) is true — The Assertion is not false. It is the standard formulation used in India's own SDG documentation and by UN agencies: because of India's demographic weight, global attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals depends heavily on India's progress. Calling A false would require arguing that the world could meet population-based global targets while a sixth of humanity is left behind, which is arithmetically impossible.
The Sustainable Development Goals are 17 goals with 169 targets set out in 'Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development', adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015 as the successor to the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015). Crucially, most SDG indicators are counted in people — how many live below the poverty line, how many lack drinking water, how many children are stunted. A global target is therefore the sum of national performances weighted by population, which is exactly why the most populous countries are decisive for whether the world succeeds.
Attack an assertion-reason item in three steps: (1) is A true on its own? (2) is R true on its own? (3) only then, does R cause or account for A? Here A and R are both safely true, so the real decision is between option (a) and option (d). The test for 'correct explanation' is whether removing R would leave A unsupported. Remove India's demographic weight and the claim 'India's success is critical for global SDG success' loses its whole basis — India would then be one of nearly two hundred countries with no special leverage. That dependence is the signature of a correct explanation, so (d) is right.
- The 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (169 targets) were adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015 and came into force from 1 January 2016; they replaced the 8 Millennium Development Goals of 2000-2015
- India is the world's most populous country, having overtaken China during 2023; with about 1.4 billion people out of a world population of roughly 8 billion, it accounts for approximately one-sixth of humanity
- Most SDG indicators are population head-counts (people in poverty, undernourished, without sanitation), so global progress is a population-weighted sum of national progress
- NITI Aayog is the nodal institution for coordinating SDG implementation in India and publishes the SDG India Index, first released in December 2018, which ranks States and Union Territories
- India has presented Voluntary National Reviews of its SDG progress at the UN High-Level Political Forum (2017 and 2020)
- In assertion-reason items, assuming that two true statements must be unrelated and picking 'R is not the correct explanation' by reflex — here R is exactly the mechanism behind A
- Treating a population statistic as too crude to be a 'reason'; for population-denominated global targets it is the strongest possible reason
- Confusing the SDGs (17 goals, 2015-2030) with the MDGs (8 goals, 2000-2015) or with Agenda 21 (1992)
UPPSC asks the SDGs as an assertion-reason pair or as a direct recall item — which body is nodal, which goal number covers water — while UPSC prefers the institutional and definitional angle: when the goals were adopted, who reports on them, and how they differ from earlier frameworks.
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
Same concept — what the Sustainable Development Goals are and the 2030 deadline they carry. That deadline is the reason a country holding a sixth of the world's people is decisive for global attainment.
What is Rio+20 Conference, often mentioned in the news?
- (a) It is the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
- (b) It is a Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization
- (c) It is a Conference of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change
- (d) It is a Conference of the Member Countries of the Convention on Biological Diversity
Answer(a) It is the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
The origin of the same framework: the SDG process was launched at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), which mandated the open working group that drafted the 17 goals.
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 identical item type on the identical topic — an assertion-reason pair on the Sustainable Development Goals, again answered by recognising that the Reason genuinely explains the Assertion. UPPSC has now used this exact construction on SDGs twice.
Which of the following is a Nodal Institution for implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in India ?
- (a) Planning Commission
- (b) Disinvestment Commission
- (c) NITI Aayog
- (d) Finance Commission
Answer(c) NITI Aayog
The Indian institutional half of the same topic: NITI Aayog is the nodal body that coordinates SDG implementation and measures the State-level progress on which India's global contribution rests.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, containing the Sustainable Development Goals, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in the year
- (a)2000
- (b)2012
- (c)2015
- (d)2016
Answer(c) 2015 — adopted in September 2015 by UNGA Resolution 70/1; the goals came into force from 1 January 2016.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Sustainable Development Goals succeeded which one of the following sets of globally agreed goals that ran from 2000 to 2015?
- (a)Millennium Development Goals
- (b)Agenda 21 Objectives
- (c)Brundtland Commission Targets
- (d)Rio Declaration Principles
Answer(a) Millennium Development Goals — 8 goals adopted in 2000, replaced by the 17 SDGs in 2015.