Human Development Progress in South Asia: Achievements and Challenges

Rapid human development progress in India, Bangladesh and other South Asian nations is helping drive a historic shift in global dynamics, with hundreds of millions of people rising from poverty and billions more poised to join a new global middle class (HDR-13, UNDP). South Asian nations achieved their achievements to some strong national commitments as better public health and education services, innovative poverty eradication programs and strategic engagement with the world economy. The main objective of the present paper is to asses the progress made by the countries of the South Asia in terms of human development for the period from 1990 to 2012 by undertaking values of various indices concerned to human development. In addition, an attempt is also made to identify the challenges at the front of human development.