India’s ranking in the Global Hunger Index has slipped to 111th position from the 107th rank in 2022, reports stated.
The Global Hunger Index is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels. It is counted among a total of 125 countries of the world.
Further, the index also stated that India reported the highest child wasting rate at 18.7 per cent.
On the other hand, India’s neighbouring countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have ranked 102, 81, 69 and 60 respectively.
The report also claimed that the rate of undernourishment in the country stood at 16.6 percent and under-five mortality at 3.1 percent. The report also said that the prevalence of anaemia in women aged between 15 and 24 years stood at 58.1 per cent.
However, the Central Government rejecting the index said that the it is a flawed measure of "hunger" and does not reflect India's true position.
The Women and Child Development Ministry said that the index suffers ‘serious methodological issues’.
The ministry said, “The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. 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.”
