In a piece of bad news for India, a recent report, Global Hunger Index, ranked India lower than its neighbours -- Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan regarding the rate of malnutrition and hunger in the country.
Out of 117, India came 102 in the list and was ranked lower than its neighbours where Nepal ranked 73, Bangladesh 88 and Pakistan 94 out of the 117 countries.
The list was curated by two international non-profit agencies which are part of humanitarian aid. They were compiled by Ireland's Concern Worldwide and Germany's Welthungerhilfe. Each country is marked out of 100 points with zero the best and 100 the worst. India scored 30.3 and this is serious, the report said, says NDTV.
The parameters under which the countries were ranked were undernourishment, the share of children under five years who have a low weight for their age, the share of children under five years who have a low height for their age, and child mortality rate under five years of age.
"Using this combination of indicators to measure hunger offers several advantages. The indicators included in the GHI formula reflect caloric deficiencies as well as poor nutrition. The undernourishment indicator captures the nutrition situation of the population as a whole, while the indicators specific to children reflect the nutrition status within a particularly vulnerable subset of the population..." the GHI report stated.
What was more distressing than the ranking was how much India fell through the ranks compared to the previous lists. In 2014, India was ranked 55 out of 76 nations, 100 out of 119 nations in 2017, 103 out of 119 countries in 2018 and 102 out of 117 countries in 2019.
Explaining the parametres of India when it was evaluated, the GHI report said, "Because of its large population, India's Global Hunger Index indicator values have an outsized impact on the indicator values for the region... India's child wasting rate is extremely high at 20.8 per cent - the highest wasting rate of any country in this report for which data or estimates were available."
