14 Oct 2019; (UMM): India has slipped to 102 in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) in 2019, from 93rd rank in 2015, the website that tracks hunger and malnutrition said on Wednesday. Pakistan, on the other hand, has improved its ranking from 106 in 2015 to 94 in 2019, while Sri Lanka has gone up from 82 to 66.
Countries like Yemen and Djibouti, which are conflict ridden and facing severe climate issues respectively, fared better than India.
Seventeen countries, including Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI scores of less than five.
The report, prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe termed the level of hunger in India “serious”.
The GHI score is calculated on four indicators -- undernourishment; child wasting, the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (that is, 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.
India is among 45 countries that have serious levels of hunger, and is among 45 countries which are set to fail to achieve low levels of hunger by 2030.
India's 'child wasting rate' (low weight for height) is extremely high at 20.8 per cent -- the highest wasting rate of any country, and just 9.6 per cent of all children between 6 and 23 months of age are fed a minimum acceptable diet, says the report.
Lauding neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, the report says have made significant advances in child nutrition. "The study attributed the decrease primarily to rising household wealth associated with pro-poor economic growth and gains in parental education, as well as health and sanitation.
