Sunday 14 / December / 2025
New Delhi: In a world where high growth has often failed to translate into inclusion, and sustainability has frequently been framed as a trade-off against progress, development itself has entered a credibility crisis. Against this backdrop, India’s trajectory over the last decade has stood apart.
Under PM Modi, development has been redefined not as an abstract economic pursuit, but as a systems-led, people-centric transformation that scales inclusion while delivering sustainability. What has drawn global attention is not the ambition of India’s claims, but the consistency of its outcomes. India’s experience is increasingly viewed not as an exception, but as a reference point for how growth, equity, and responsibility can move together.
Delivering sustainability at scale, not as a slogan
India demonstrated that climate responsibility and economic expansion are not mutually exclusive. The country crossed 500 GW of installed electricity capacity, with over 51% coming from non-fossil sources, achieving its 2030 clean energy target years ahead of schedule. This milestone placed India among the few major economies to structurally tilt its energy mix while sustaining high growth.
Sustainability was not confined to utility-scale projects alone. Clean energy was embedded into household economics through PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, under which nearly 2.4 million households have already installed rooftop solar systems. By linking climate action directly to household savings and energy security, India’s sustainability narrative gained credibility through delivery, not declarations.
Turning digital infrastructure into a global inclusion blueprint
India’s most distinctive contribution has been redesigning the architecture of inclusion itself. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) now processes over 640 million transactions daily, surpassing Visa to become the world’s largest real-time payment system. Its interoperability and low-cost design transformed digital payments into a universal public utility rather than a premium service.
This model did not remain confined within India’s borders. With UPI now live in seven countries, India’s digital platforms have proven to be exportable, trusted, and adaptable across jurisdictions. Global institutions took note. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva publicly cited India’s digital ID and reform architecture as proof that large-scale digital inclusion is both feasible and transformative, positioning India as a key engine of global growth.
When Inclusion becomes the definition of growth
As India demonstrated that inclusion could be engineered at scale, it also challenged how growth itself is defined. Across G20 platforms, PM Modi consistently argued that development must be measured not only through GDP aggregates, but through ease of living, dignity, and well-being. It was rooted in India’s domestic experience of linking technology, access, and outcomes.
India’s proposals on labour mobility, skilling portability, and inclusive financial systems were repeatedly referenced in G20 as a model of human-centric growth rooted in equity and empowerment. This reframing mattered because it shifted the global development debate. Growth was no longer judged solely by speed, but by who it reached and how sustainably it endured.
Inclusion as economic foundation, not welfare expansion
This global reframing rested on a quiet domestic reality. India ensured that rapid expansion did not create structural exclusion by securing population-scale access to banking through the JAM trinity, health coverage through Ayushman Bharat, housing through PM Awas Yojana, and water through Jal Jeevan Mission.
These interventions were treated as economic infrastructure, stabilising consumption, reducing vulnerability, and supporting labour participation. Rather than fragmenting growth through disconnected safety nets, India embedded inclusion into the growth process itself, allowing expansion to remain broad-based and socially stable.
Global validation through multilateral platforms
India’s development model gained decisive international validation during its G20 presidency. Instead of treating the presidency as a diplomatic showcase, India used it to translate domestic governance experience into global agenda-setting.
The launch of the Global Biofuels Alliance brought together over 30 countries and international organisations to promote sustainable biofuels, drawing on India’s own success in achieving 10% ethanol blending ahead of schedule.
Through Mission LiFE, PM Modi advanced a global framework that places lifestyle choices, consumption patterns, and citizen participation at the centre of climate action. The initiative has since been formally recognised and amplified by the United Nations and UNEP as a scalable behavioural model for climate mitigation.
As a co-founder of the International Solar Alliance, India has helped build a multilateral platform with over 120 member and signatory countries, focused on accelerating solar deployment across the developing world. By sharing policy frameworks and implementation models, India positioned itself as a facilitator of affordable energy transitions, particularly for the Global South.
The induction of the African Union as a permanent G20 member corrected a long-standing representational imbalance, expanding the forum’s legitimacy to include nearly 80% of the world’s population. The unanimous adoption of the New Delhi Declaration further reinforced India’s standing as a consensus-builder capable of delivering outcomes even in a fragmented world.
Why the world is paying attention
The cumulative effect of these shifts is now visible in institutional assessments. The IMF has repeatedly identified India as a primary contributor to global growth, citing reform depth, demographic scale, and institutional capacity. World Bank and UN assessments increasingly reference India’s digital public goods, sustainability approach, and inclusion frameworks as adaptable models for other developing economies.
This marks a transition. India is no longer viewed only as a large emerging market, but as a rule-shaper, offering practical governance solutions to shared global challenges.
