Development writer and international negotiations watcher Biraj Swain discusses with Samir Saran of Observer Research Foundation, Bidisha Pillai of SAVE the Children India, Amitabh Behar of National Foundation of India and Mukul Sanwal, career bureaucrat and India’s chief climate negotiator at 1992 Rio the recently concluded United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Summit which were gavelled in New York in the last week of September. They discuss the goals themselves and what they hold for us and our future and our children’s future. The panelists pick their favourite ones. They discuss India’s pitch and participation, and if the over-presence of private sector, is that making the global public good, the UN, a compromised entity. The close by discussing the road ahead for SDGs in India, for Indians.

They also listen in from one of India’s youth delegate at the UN, Anoyara Khatun, on her aspirations and expectations from India and world leaders.

The readings:

1. Sustainable Development Goals, final outcome document
2. Fit for whose purpose: Private funding and corporate influence on the United Nations
3. The World’s search for sustainable development: A Perspective from the global South
4. The Reality of Social Rights Enforcement
5. The Global Goals
6. A Note on the Optimal Supply of Public Goods and the Distortionary Cost of Taxation
7. Indian teenager Anoyara Khatun joins Bill and Melinda Gates to combat child trafficking