Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women in India: Mapping through UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the goals approved by the UN General Assembly in 2015 September, which are the further 15 years extension of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000. It has 17 goals and 169 targets with a plan of achieving its aims by 2030. Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is one of its significant goals. Indian women always remain an underprivileged group in accessing their economic, political, and socio-cultural rights. Therefore, the focus of the paper is to explore the plans and policies initiated by the government of India, which supports the quest for women empowerment and gender equality in India to achieve United Nations SDGs. The study is exploratory and analysed qualitatively by using secondary data resources. The finding of the paper divulges that in the progression of attaining SDGs, there are promising efforts that have been being made by the Indian government to curb gender inequality and to achieve women empowerment at all spheres. These efforts need the effective and proper implementation to curb the menace of gender inequality and to achieve women empowerment. In the area of education, women must have a significant part to play that makes them as the impetus for feasible development.