The 2018 Report says there are more hungry people in India than five years ago.
There is bad news for India from the Global Hunger Index 2018 which ranks India at 103 position among the 119 nations. Last year India was on 100th position. But even more poignantly, India has fallen from 55th position in 2014 when Mr. Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister of the nation at the head of a stable NDA Government.
The Global Hunger Index or GHI by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, began to rank nations 2006 which covers the access to food and nature of nutrition to people across the nations of the world in 2006. It takes stock of calorie value of nutrition, and quantity of the food intake.
South Asia has highest child stunting rates
The GHI position negates several of the pronouncements of the Modi Government which has been making loud claims about improvement in employment position and better economic growth. But the GHI position of the last five years of NDA rule show that India’s ranking has constantly slid down from 55th in 2014 to 80 in 2015; 97 in 2016, 100 in 2017 and 103 in 2018.
India has in fact fallen below the ranking of neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh which have been placed at 86th and 72nd rank. China is much ahead of India at 25th position. Sri Lanka stands at 67th position. But Pakistan is lower than India at 106th position.
The GHI position negates several of the pronouncements of the Modi Government which has been making loud claims about improvement in employment position and better economic growth. But the GHI position of the last five years of NDA rule shows that India’s ranking has constantly slid down from 55th in 2014 to 80 in 2015; 97 in 2016, 100 in 2017 and 103 in 2018.
In the countries included in the GHI, the share of the population that is undernourished stands at 12.3 percent as of 2015″2017, down from 17.6 percent in 1999″2001. Of children under five, 27.9 percent are stunted based on data from 2013″2017, down from 37.1 percent in 1998″2002, and 9.3 percent are wasted, down slightly from 9.7 percent in 1998″2002. Finally, the under-five mortality rate was 4.2 percent as of 2016, down from 8.1 percent in 2000.
Latvia, Romania, Montenegro, Belaurs, Croatia, Lithuania, Turkey, Uruguay, Kuwait, Cuba, Costa Rica, Estonia, Ukraine, Chile, Bosnia and Herzegovina are included among countries on the No. 1 rank. Countries behind India (i.e., 103rd position) are North Korea (109), Timor-Leste (110), Afghanistan (111), Sudan (112), Haiti (113), Sierra Leone (114), Zambia (115), Madagascar (116), Yemen (117), Chad (118) and Central African Republic (119).
Iran is 24th while its neighbour Iraq stands on 74. Indonesia is ranked 58 whereas Morocco is placed at 44th. Saudi Arabia has scored 31st rank while Tunisia comes ahead of it at 28th. Nigeria shares India’s ranking at 103. Malaysia is at 57th rank.
S. Asia Critical
The Report notes that the GHI scores for South Asia and Africa south of the Sahara merit special consideration. In both of these regions, the rates of undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality are unacceptably high. In particular, South Asia has the highest child stunting and child wasting rates of any region, followed by Africa south of the Sahara. In terms of undernourishment and child mortality, Africa south of the Sahara has the highest rates, followed by South Asia.
Insufficient Data from 13 nations
The Report notes that 13 countries provided insufficient data which did not fit the assessment under the GHI formula. These were Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria. Many of these countries are facing civil war, conflict and disruption in sanitation, water supply and civil supplies.
COMMENTS