By Sri Varshith Kumar Reddy E

India’s 94th place in the Sustainable Development Report 2026 is its best since the goals were adopted, up from 99th a year earlier and 112th in 2015, on a score of 68.3 out of 100. 

Among the major powers only China, with a gain of 14 places, comes near India’s 18. 

Ministries will circulate the figure with justified pride, though it folds seventeen goals into a single digit, and a single digit cannot say which goals lift the country and which drag it down.

The Ministry of Statistics supplied a better instrument on June 29, when it released its National Indicator Framework Progress Report, built on 277 indicators. 

Read slowly, it describes a country that has grown expert at building things and is only beginning to measure what those things deliver.

The building record is formidable, as rural households with piped drinking water have risen from about 21 per cent to nearly 82 per cent, and household electrification is complete. Internet subscriptions have grown from 302 million to 969 million, Aadhaar covers 95.67 per cent of the population, and social protection has widened from 22 per cent in 2016 to 65.3 per cent now. 

Poverty has receded with it: 5.1 per cent of Indians live below $3 a day and 9.6 per cent below $4.20. Under-five mortality has fallen from 43 to 28 per 1,000 live births, unemployment has halved from 6.1 per cent in 2017-18 to 3.1 per cent in 2025, and installed renewable capacity per capita has nearly tripled since 2014-15. 

Critics who skip these figures forfeit their credibility........

© Kashmir Observer