Guwahati: India dropped from the 101st spot in 2021 to the 107th spot in 2022 according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI). The GHI, jointly released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, measures and tracks hunger in all of its forms at the international, regional, and national levels. India is rated last among the 121 nations on the GHI, trailing its neighbours Nepal (81), Pakistan (99), Sri Lanka (64), and Bangladesh (84).
India received a score of 29.1 on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), which ranks nations based on their “severity” of hunger. This puts India in the “serious” category.
Yemen is ranked 121st on the list, which comprises 17 top-ranking countries in total; there are only minor discrepancies between their severity ratings. The top two countries on the list, which is dominated by European countries like Croatia, Estonia, and Montenegro, are both Asian: China and Kuwait.
According to The Indian Express, the GHI score is determined by four indicators: undernourishment, child wasting (the percentage of children under five with low weight for height, reflecting acute undernutrition), child stunting (children under five with low height for age, reflecting chronic undernutrition), and child mortality (the mortality rate of children under five).
Over time, India has seen a decline in GHI scores. It had a “alarming” score of 38.8 in 2000, which fell to 28.2 by 2014. Since then, the nation has begun to post greater scores.
India has typically recorded lower values for the four metrics, but in 2014, the rates of undernourishment and child wasting began to rise. Undernourishment increased from 14.8 percent in 2014 to 16.3 percent in 2022, while the prevalence of wasting in children less than five years of age increased from 15.1 percent in 2014 to 19.3 percent in 2022.
The other two indicators also saw an improvement in India. Under-five mortality decreased from 4.6 in 2014 to 3.3 in 2022, while stunning in children under five decreased from 38.7 in 2014 to 35.5 in 2022.