India slips below Pakistan in Global Hunger Index 2019

DUBLIN: India has gone even below Pakistan on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), slipping from 95th rank in 2010 to 102nd in 2019.

The report is prepared jointly by Concern Worldwide, an Irish aid agency, and Welt Hunger Hilfe, a German organisation.

India’s dismal performance on hunger is directly linked to the high levels of child undernourishment. Neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka (66), Nepal (73), Bangladesh (88), and Pakistan (94), are better at feeding its citizens than India, according to this index.

India’s child wasting rate (weight for age) is high at 20.8 percent, which the report states are the highest wasting rate of any country studied for the GHI report. India’s child stunting rate at 37.9 percent, is also categorized as very high when looked from the perspective of its public health significance.

When it comes to infants aged 6 months to 23 months, only 9.6 percent of them in India are properly fed. The report also mentions the Indian government’s Swachh Bharat program that aims to end open defecation and has made progress in toilet construction. But it notes that even with new toilets, open defecation is still being practiced and that highly jeopardizes the population’s and children’s health in particular.