India Ranks 111th Global Hunger Index Report : India Rejects Report

Ruby Thakur
October 13, 2023
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The Indian government Thursday rejected the 2023 Global Hunger Index data in which India ranked 111th out of 125 countries, calling it a flawed measure of “hunger” that does not reflect the country’s true position.

India Ranks 111^th Global Hunger Index Report : India Rejects Report

Why In News

The Indian government Thursday rejected the 2023 Global Hunger Index data in which India ranked 111th out of 125 countries, calling it a flawed measure of “hunger” that does not reflect the country’s true position.
The Country Came After Neighbouring Countries Pakistan (102nd), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th) And Sri Lanka (60th). India Ranked 107th Out Of 121 Countries In The 2022 Edition Of The Global Hunger Index.

Global Hunger Index

is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels, jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, non-governmental organizations from Ireland and Germany.
GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators:
Undernourishment– Not Eating Enough Food To Continue Good Health.
Child stunting– Child stunting refers to a child who is too short for his or her age and is the result of chronic or recurrent malnutrition
Child wasting– a child who is too thin for his or her height and is the result of recent rapid weight loss or the failure to gain weight.
Child mortality Under Five – mortality rate refers to the probability a newborn would die before reaching exactly 5 years of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
India ranked 107th out of 121 countries in the 2022 edition of the Global Hunger Index (GHI).

What Does Report Says

India ranked 111th out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2023
India has a score of 28.7, indicating a serious level of hunger.
The country came after neighbouring countries Pakistan (102nd), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th) and Sri Lanka (60th). However, India fared better than South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara, which recorded a score of 27 each
India’s child wasting rate at 18.7%, the highest globally, signalling acute undernutrition. Wasting is measured based on children’s weight relative to their height.
According to the index, the rate of undernourishment in India stood at 16.6% and under-five mortality at 3.1 per cent.
The Prevalence Of Anaemia In Women Aged Between 15 And 24 Years Stood At 58.1 Percent.

Government Rejected The Report

The government, however, rejected the index calling it a flawed measure of “hunger” that does not reflect India’s true position.
The Women and Child Development Ministry said the index suffers from “serious methodological issues and shows a malafide intent“.

Three out of the four indicators used for calculation of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population.

The fourth and most important indicator ‘Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population’ is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3,000.
The ministry said that since April 2023, the measurement data of children under five years uploaded on the Poshan Tracker has consistently increased – from 6.34 crore in April 2023 to 7.24 crore in September 2023.

“The percentage of child wasting, as seen on the Poshan Tracker, has been consistently below 7.2 per cent, month-on-month, as compared to the value of 18.7 per cent used for child wasting in the Global Hunger Index 2023.

Two other indicators, namely stunting and wasting, are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI.

Poshan Tracker

The Poshan Tracker app, a digital platform introduced by the Government of India on 1st March, 2021 as an important governance tool.
Flagship initiative, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program, has been designed to monitor and track the growth and nutritional status of children and women across the country.
The initiative focuses on the nutrition of pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children under 6 years of age.
The Poshan Tracker is a beneficiary-focused, service delivery application that provides real-time data with statistical analysis.

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Ruby Thakur

General Studies Lecturer SSBCrackExams, BSc In PCM, Trained Students For State Services Exams. Expertise in Geography ,Polity & Current Affairs. Love Travelling.