In the 2023 Global Hunger Index, India is placed 111th, with the government criticizing the report as ‘inaccurate’

In the 2023 Global Hunger Index, India has slipped to the 111th position out of 125 countries, marking a decline of four places from the previous year. Nevertheless, the Indian government has strongly criticized the report, labeling it as “flawed” and “inaccurate.”

The global report, released by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, non-governmental organizations from Ireland and Germany, states that India’s score on the 2023 Global Hunger Index is 28.7, indicating a serious level of hunger. In 2022, India was ranked 107th out of 125 countries.

The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development has issued a statement refuting the report’s claims, arguing that the index is an inadequate measure of hunger and does not accurately represent India’s actual status. The ministry points out that three of the four indicators used to calculate the index are related to children’s health, making it unrepresentative of the entire population. Moreover, the most crucial indicator, the “Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population,” is based on a small sample size opinion poll of 3,000 individuals.

The report also highlights that India has the world’s highest child wasting rate at 18.7%, indicating acute undernutrition. Other concerning figures include a 16.6% rate of undernourishment and an under-five mortality rate of 3.1%. The report reveals that 58.1% of women aged 15 to 24 in India suffer from anemia.

The ministry emphasizes that indicators like stunting and wasting are outcomes of complex interactions involving factors such as sanitation, genetics, environment, and food utilization, apart from hunger. These indicators should not be solely attributed to hunger, as the GHI implies. Additionally, the ministry argues that there is limited evidence to support the claim that child mortality is a direct outcome of hunger.

The ministry provides data from the Poshan Tracker, indicating that since April 2023, the number of children under five years in the tracker has consistently increased, from 6.34 crore in April 2023 to 7.24 crore in September 2023. Notably, the percentage of child wasting, as reported on the Poshan Tracker, has consistently remained below 7.2% month-on-month, in contrast to the 18.7% value used for child wasting in the Global Hunger Index 2023.