India falls behind Pakistan, Nepal on Global Hunger Index; goes from 107 to 101
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India has fallen to the 107th position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022, out of 121 countries, from its 2021 position of 101st. India is behind its neighbors Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. As per the report, jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe, the level of hunger in India is "serious". The value indicators that the index comprises show a stark fall in the last 22 years.
Seventeen countries, including China, Turkey, and Kuwait, shared the top rank with a GHI score of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index that tracks hunger and malnutrition said on Saturday.
The report, prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organization 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 on 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 -- calling it "shocking" and "devoid of ground reality"-- after India fell below the 100th rank. The government claimed the methodology used to calculate the Global Hunger Index is unscientific.
"The methodology used by FAO is unscientific. They have based their assessment on the results of a 'four question' opinion poll, which was conducted telephonically by Gallup. There is no scientific methodology to measure undernourishment like the availability of food grains per capita during the period. The scientific measurement of undernourishment would require measurement of weight and height, whereas the methodology involved here is based on Gallup poll based on a pure telephonic estimate of the population," it had said.
Welt Hunger Hilfe had then refuted New Delhi's claim that India's fall in the ranking was based on an opinion poll conducted by Gallup.
"Global Hunger Index uses only a 'prevalence of undernourishment' indicator... obtained through carefully constructed food balance sheets which are primarily based on data officially reported by the member countries including India," said Miriam Weimers, Advisor, Global Hunger Index.
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).
