UN notes progress, but says challenges remain for India

NEW DELHI: India has made notable progress towards realising the Millennium Development Goals, including of reducing poverty by half and securing gender parity, but the achievements across the goals vary, a major UN report has revealed.

"India has already achieved the target of reducing poverty by half by official estimates and is close to doing so by international estimates.

"It has already achieved gender parity in primary school enrolment and is likely to reach parity in secondary and tertiary education also by 2015," says the report on Millennium Development Goals released by the United Nations Economic and Social Communication for Asia-Pacific (UN-ESCAP).

While India is on track to achieving the hunger targets, it remains home to one quarter of the world's under-nourished population and nearly a third of world's underweight children, the report said. India also has nearly a third of the world's food insecure people, it added.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had released a 2015 report on Millennium Development Goals yesterday.

Noted economist and member, NITI Aayog, Bibek Debroy, along with Nagesh Kumar, Head, UN-ESCAP, and Rebecca Tavares released the MDG report and Asia-Pacific MDG report here today.

The report revealed that while India is on track to achieving gender parity at all levels of education, women's literacy rates lag behind that of men, indicating poorer learning outcomes for the fairer sex. Securing opportunities for women and ensuring their empowerment remain major development challenges.