Why India Needs a Unique Approach to Sustainability

When the United Nations Conference on Environment and Developmentpropelled 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.