India slips 7 spots to 101st on hunger index

New Delhi: India has slipped to the 101st position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021 of 116 countries and is behind its neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Eighteen countries, including China, Brazil and Kuwait, shared the top rank with a GHI score of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index. which tracks hunger and malnutrition, said on Thursday. The report, prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe, termed the level of hunger in India “alarming”.

In 2020, India was ranked 94th out of 107 countries. Now with 116 countries in the fray, it has dropped to 101st rank. India’s GHI score has also decelerated — from 38.8 in 2000 to the range of 28.8-27.5 between 2012 and 2021.

The GHI score is calculated on four indicators — undernourishment; child wasting (the share of children under the age of five who are wasted i.e who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition); child stunting (children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition) and child mortality (the mortality rate of children under the age of five).

“People have been severely hit by Covid-19 and pandemic-related restrictions in India,” the report said. Neighbouring countries like Nepal and Pakistan have fared better at feeding its citizens than India, according to the report. PTI