India ranks 111 out of 125 countries in Global Hunger Index

Source: The post is based on the article “India ranks 111 out of 125 countries in Global Hunger Index” published in “The Hindu” on 12th October 2023

What is the News?

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023 has been released.India has been ranked 111 out of a total of 125 countries.

What is the Global Hunger Index (GHI)?

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What are the key findings of the Global Hunger Index(GHI) 2023 related to India?

India’s Rank: India has been ranked 111 out of a total of 125 countries in 2023.India ranked 107th out of 121 countries in 2022.

India’s Score: India’s ranking is based on a Hunger Index score of 28.7 on a 100-point scale where 0 is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.

– This categorizes India’s severity of hunger as “serious”.

India’s Nutritional Indicators: India’s child wasting rate at 18.7% was the highest in the world during 2018–22.

– The rate of undernourishment in India stood at 16.6 per cent 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 per cent.

Comparison with Neighboring countries: India’s neighboring countries, Pakistan (102), Bangladesh (81), Nepal (69th), and Sri Lanka (60) have performed better than India in the index.

Countries which performed worse than India: Afghanistan, Haiti and 12 sub-Saharan countries performed worse than India.

South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara are the world regions with the highest hunger levels.

What is the Government of India’s reaction to the GHI 2023?

Ministry of Women and Child Development has criticized the GHI 2023 report on the following grounds:

Firstly, the way GHI measures hunger is flawed because three out of the four indicators are related to the health of children which don’t represent the entire population.

Secondly, the key indicator, “Proportion of Undernourished Population,” is based on a small 3,000-person opinion poll. 

Thirdly, child wasting as shown on the Poshan Tracker has consistently been below 7.2%.This contradicts the GHI 2023’s figure of 18.7%.