The Reports On Global Hunger ‘Erroneous’, Centre Doubts Motive And Methodology

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels. This is a peer-reviewed annual reports jointly released by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, two Non-Government Organisations from Ireland and Germany respectively.

The reports of 2022 have tagged India’s hunger situation as ‘serious’ and placed it at the top in child wasting amounting to 19.3%. Notably, as per the hunger index, the only country India can look down upon is Afghanistan as even Pakistan and Bangladesh have performed far better than India.

Only Indicators related to Children are used: Government

The Women and Child Development Ministry while expressing its discontent over the reports said, “Though an assurance was forthcoming that there will be further engagement on this issue, the publication of the Global Hunger Index report irrespective of such factual considerations is regrettable.”

The statement said that the three indicators out of the four used for measuring the hunger index of the whole population of the country are related to the health of the children that cannot represent a holistic picture. The three indicators are stunting, wasting and mortality.

“The fourth and most important indicator estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000,” the statement added.

Pointing to the measures taken up by the Government to increase the food security of the population during the Covid period, the statement said that the report is far from ground reality and do not search for facts based on relevant information about the delivery of nutritional support and assurance of food security.

“These indicators are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like drinking water, 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. Calculating hunger based on mainly indicators relating to health indicators of children is neither scientific nor rational,” the Ministry noted.

The Reactions from the Oppositions

Hitting out at the Government for its practice of living in denial, the senior Congress leade Mallikarjun Kharge tweeted, “BJP's living in denial and trying to suppress facts has led India to this massive crisis.” He also asked the Prime Minister, “Are there any more excuses still left, Modi ji?”

Terming Modi Government as ‘Disaster’ and taking a jibe at Modi for his mundane ‘Vishwaguru’ flexing, the official Twitter handle of Congress said, “India ranks 107th in the Hunger Index, out of a list of 121 countries. Till last year the ranking was 101. Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sudan, Nigeria, Rwanda. These countries are in a better position than us. Was this 'Acche Din' promised by the fake Vishwaguru?”

Criticising the NDA Government over its inaction on the well-being of children, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson Clyde Crasto said, “From GHI rank 55 in 2014 to 107 in 2022 means the NDA government and its Women and Child Development (department) ministers have failed to take care and look after children of our country.”

Demanding an answer the statement added, “India faring worse than all countries in south Asia except Afghanistan shows that the government has neglected the development of children in the last 8 years. The government owes an answer to India on this sensitive issue.”

In 2021, India ranked 101 out of 116 countries while in 2020 the country was placed in 94th position. This time however, Afghanistan with a rank of 109 is the only country behind India in Asia, while neighbouring countries - Pakistan (99), Bangladesh (84), Nepal (81) and Sri Lanka (64) have all fared far better than India.

(With PTI Inputs)