Poverty, hunger on the rise in India as it slips to 101st spot in Global Hunger Index

NEW DELHI: India ranks 101 in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021, according to a new GHI report.

The country has slipped from its last year’s ranking of 94, to be placed behind its neighbours Nepal (76), Bangladesh (76), Myanmar (71) and Pakistan (92), which fared better at feeding its citizens than India, according to the report.

With the new ranking, only 15 countries — Papua New Guinea (102), Afghanistan (103), Nigeria (103), Congo (105), Mozambique (106), Sierra Leone (106), Timor-Leste (108), Haiti (109), Liberia (110), Madagascar (111), Democratic Republic of Congo (112), Chad (113), Central African Republic (114), Yemen (115) and Somalia (116) — fared worse than India this year.

The report has been prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe.

India’s GHI score has fallen from 38.8 in 2000 to the range of 28.8 to 27.5 between 2012 and 2021, the report said.

The GHI score is calculated on four indicators, undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and the mortality rate of children under the age of five.

Child wasting refers to the share of children under the age of five who have low weight for their height as a result of acute undernutrition.

Child stunting measures the proportion of kids under the age of five who have low height for their age due to the impact of chronic undernutrition.

Eighteen countries, including China, Brazil and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI score of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index that tracks hunger and malnutrition said