This book introduces the issues of the contemporary state of Bihar, India, in terms of its performance on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicators and the initiatives taken by the central and state governments towards realizing human development. Doing so, it draws upon the mistakes committed in the past and moves ahead towards a better future with the idea of sustainable human development. The book also presents a comprehensive evaluation of the background and indicators of the human development index, and it analyses the impact of COVID-19 on India in general and on Bihar in particular. India is a nation of unbalanced states in terms of development. In spite of all the development initiatives, India still contains states that have not conformed to the breakthrough claimed by the nation, and the state of Bihar falls under this category. Bihar has emerged as the worst performer in human development, based on the ranking of the Human Development Index 2020. Nevertheless, Bihar has the potential for overall development to achieve its glorious past once again, by various pro-poor policies implemented by the government of Bihar in the last two decades, which is critically analysed in detail.

This paper measures, for the first time, the level of human development across 707 districts of India as they existed at the time of National Family Health Survey 2019-2022 using an alternative index of human development. The alternative index uses proportions rather than averages to measure progress in the three core dimensions of human development and uses the concept of human development surface to combine the progress in the three dimensions of human development into a single composite index of human development. The alternative human development index used in the paper addresses some of the problems associated with the conventional human development index. Application of the alternative human development index suggests that human development in India is the poorest in district Supaul of Bihar but the most advanced in district Mahe of Puducherry. The paper also reveals that in 78 districts, there is marked difference in progress in the three dimensions of human development. Moreover, in 231 districts progress is below average in all the three dimensions that constitute human development. The paper emphasizes the need of calculating human development index for the districts at regular intervals to imbibe human development sensitiveness in development planning and programming in the country.

Questioning whether certain sections of Indian society suffer from multiple deprivations, the Indian Human Development Report 2011 evaluates whether the social indicators of the excluded groups are converging or diverging with the rest of the population. The Report addresses three critical issues: (i) Do different social groups like the SCs, STs, and Muslims get excluded from the development process? (ii) Has India experienced inclusive growth in the true sense? (iii) How are flagship programmes/schemes of the government dealing with some of these concerns? Rich in data and analyses, this Report examines: human development index and profile for India and its states; economic attainment of the population, especially in terms of the two major sources of income-employment and assets; availability, access, and absorption of food and state of hunger and malnutrition; health indicators vis-a-vis inputs, processes, and outcomes; achievements and challenges in education; state of support infrastructure such as roads, electricity, housing, and telephony; and challenges facing vulnerable sections of India's population-child labourers, the elderly, and the disabled.