India Slips In GHI 2017 Report

NET Bureau In a Nutshell

India, like most of its south Asian neighbours, has a ‘se-rious’ hunger problem with 15.2 percent of its citizens undernourished and 38.7 percent of under-five children stunted. This was revealed in the Global Hunger Index report released by the Washington based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on October 12.

According to the report’s global rankings for 2017, India was ranked 100 among 119 developing nations, and this is worse than all its neighbours- China (29), Nepal (72), Myanmar (77), Sri Lanka (84) and Bangladesh (88). The only nations that fared worse than India were Pakistan (106) and Afghanistan (107). Even North Korea (93) and Iraq (78) fared better in hunger parameters and GHI rankings.

The GHI report further stated that India’s poor score is one of the main factors that have been pushing South Asia to the category of the ‘worst performing region’ on the GHI scale in 2017.

“While countries like Chile, Cuba and Turkey have a GHI score of less than 5 and are ranked the best among developing nations, countries like Chad and Central African Republic fare the worst with a score of 43.5 and 50.9, respectively,” the report stated.

According to the GHI report, over a fifth (21 percent) of children in India suffer from wasting (low weight for height)—up from 20 percent in 2005-2006.

“Only three other countries in 2017’s GHI—Djibouti, Sri Lanka, and South Sudan—show child wasting above 20 percent,” the report said.

Factors Leading to 100th Rank