In 2021, India was ranked 101 out of 116 countries.
New Delhi:
India has slipped to the 107th position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022 of 121 countries, from its 2021 position of 101st and is behind its neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
Seventeen countries, including China, Turkey, and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI score of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index that tracks hunger and malnutrition said on Saturday.
Congress MP P Chidambaram, citing the report, said our score has worsened since 2014 in the 8 years of the Narendra Modi-led government.
“When will the Hon’ble PM address real issues like malnutrition, hunger, and stunting and wasting among children?” he asked on Twitter.
When will the Hon’ble PM address real issues like malnutrition, hunger, and stunting and wasting among children?
22.4 crore people in India are considered undernourished
India’s rank in the Global Hunger Index is near the bottom — 107 out of 121 countries
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) October 15, 2022
The report, prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe, termed the level of hunger in India “serious”.
In 2021, India was ranked 101 out of 116 countries. Now with 121 countries in the list, it has dropped to the 107th rank. India’s GHI score has also decelerated – from 38.8 in 2000 to the range of 28.2 – 29.1 between 2014 and 2022.
The government had last year slammed the report after India fell below the 100th rank, saying the methodology used to calculate the Global Hunger Index is unscientific.
“It is shocking to find that the Global Hunger Report 2021 has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO (UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation) estimate on proportion of undernourished population, which is found to be devoid of ground reality and facts and suffers from serious methodological issues. The publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, have not done their due diligence before releasing the report,” the government had said in a statement.
The GHI score is calculated on four indicators — undernourishment; child wasting (the share of children under the age of five who are wasted i.e who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition); child stunting (children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition) and child mortality (the mortality rate of children under the age of five).