India can't replicate China, has to invent its own path: S Jaishankar

New York: India cannot replicate China and Europe and has to invent a development path for itself, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.

"We are very hopeful that in the next five years, there will be a very visible change in human development indices of India...Ensuring universal health coverage, housing and literacy. These are the goals which are captured by the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)," he said.

"There will be some very unique development challenges because there are set models that are no precedents that India can follow in this path. India cannot replicate China and Europe. It has to invent a development path for itself which will be a kind of a very mixed complex developmental model," he added.

Jaishankar said that socio-economic changes have taken place in the last five years in the country such as growth of awareness, literacy, changes in gender gap, skills and connectivity.

"India of 2019 is very different from the India of 2014," Jaishankar said.

Terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a "symbol of credible change in the country", Jaishankar said, "Credible change means people actually think that something is important, something discernible happened in those five years. Therefore, they continue to trust in him as an agent of change in India."

Prior to the interactive session, Jaishankar met the Foreign Ministers of the G4 countries - Japan, Germany, Brazil. He also met leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).