India@80: Clear road map, bumpy ride on the long journey to Viksit Bharat

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Last Updated :

Aug 14 2026 | 11:09 PM

IST

As India marks 80 years of independence, the country is chasing the aspiration of becoming “Viksit Bharat”— its goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047. The objective is clear: to achieve growth and income levels that ensure prosperity for its citizens. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen offered a different yardstick for this journey decades ago. Development, he argued, is not measured by aggregate output but by the expansion of human freedom — the ability of the most vulnerable to eat, learn, work and live without deprivation. That framework still offers perhaps the most honest way to judge how far India has come in these years.