India is a country with severe levels of hunger according to this year’s Global Hunger Index (GHI) which slipped from 95th rank in 2010 to 102nd in 2019. The country with has come last in the ranking is the Central African Republic at 117.
The GHI is responsible for calculating the levels of hunger and undernutrition worldwide. The four indicators for the index are undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting (weight for age) and child mortality.
ALSO READ: Mexico: At least 15 killed in a shootout in Guerrero
The report says among the 117 countries ranked, 47 countries are at very alarming hunger levels and one in ‘critically alarming’. India’s performance on hunger is directly linked to the high rates of child undernourishment.
Neighbouring countries like Nepal (73rd), Sri Lanka (66th), Bangladesh (88th), Myanmar (69th) and Pakistan (94th), although come in the ‘serious’ hunger category are better at feeding its citizens than India, according to this index. China which ranked 25th has moved to a ‘low’ severity category and Sri Lanka is in the ‘moderate’ severity.
Another stark fact is that when it comes to infants who are aged six months to 23 months, only 9.6% of them in India are fed a minimum acceptable diet. This means that less than 10% of the infants in India are properly fed.
The child wasting rate in India stands at 20.8% which, according to the index, is the highest wasting rate of any country studied for the GHI report. The child stunting rate, at 37.9%, has also been termed as very high.
The report also read “Even with new latrine construction, however, open defecation is still practiced. This situation jeopardises the population’s health and consequently, children’s growth and development as their ability to absorb nutrients is compromised.”
The country has however shown an improvement in other indicators such as the under-5 mortality rate, prevalence of stunting among children and prevalence of undernourishment owing to inadequate food.