Why India Needs a Unique Approach to Sustainability

When the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development propelled sustainable development into the lexicon in 1992, India’s population was about 900 million (United Nations 2019), 45% of the population lived below poverty line (World Bank 2019), and over 70% of the population lived in rural areas (United Nations 2018). Today, with its population approaching 1.4 billion, a decline of more than half in the proportion of people living in poverty, liberalized economy, mushrooming towns and cities, highways expanding across the country, and wide-spread aspirations for modern conveniences, the twentieth-century concept for sustainable development stands on its head.