As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reached their December 2015
deadline, a new set of transformative and universal Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) was adopted by world leaders as a part of the Post-2015 Development
Agenda at the UNOs General Assembly in September 2015. At this crucial
juncture, the responsibility of steering development in India was passed on to a new
Government. It is now an opportune moment to take stock of the achievement of the
MDGs in India and the lessons learned that can be incorporated into the design and
implementation of the sustainable development goals to build upon the unfinished
MDG agenda. The present Government has announced a variety of measures to
accelerate the process of growth with equity and sustainability and has shown its
eagerness to learn from success stories in these areas in India and abroad. Yet a
complete blueprint of how to achieve these goals in a time-bound fashion is still a
work in progress.