Global Hunger Index attempt to tarnish India’s image: Centre

Government wrongly claims that one of the indicators is based on an opinion poll

The Global Hunger Index scores are calculated using four indicators — undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu

The government has yet again rejected the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022 which ranks India 107 among 121 countries and has called it “an erroneous measure of hunger” and an attempt to “taint” India’s image. It also wrongly claims that the ranks are based on an opinion poll.

The Global Hunger Report 2022 found that India’s GHI score of 29.1 on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero representing no hunger, was worse than the score of 28.2 in 2014. India’s rank was also below all neighbouring countries, barring war-ravaged Afghanistan. China, in contrast, was among the countries collectively ranked among 1 and 17 for least hunger.

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“Three out of the four indicators used for calculation of the index are related to health of Children and cannot be representative of the entire population,” says the press statement issued by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. This is the second year in a row the government has rejected the GHI rankings.

It adds that that the fourth indicator, estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU), population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000 based on “Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)” Survey Module of Food and Agriculture Organisation- a claim that was also rejected last year by representatives of the Global Hunger Index.

The GHI scores are calculated using four indicators — undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality.

The GHI says on its website that it doesn’t use FIES, but only uses prevalence of undernourishment indicator which is assessed by FAO using Food Balance Sheet, which is based primarily on data officially reported by member countries including India. These show the trends in the overall national food supply, disclose changes that may have taken place in the types of food consumed, i.e. the pattern of the diet, and reveal the extent to which the food supply of the country, as a whole, is adequate in relation to nutritional requirements.

The GHI also explains on its website that it uses three children-related indicators out of the total four to assess hunger levels for an entire country to ensure “that both the food supply situation of the population as a whole and the effects of inadequate nutrition within a particularly vulnerable subset of the population are captured.”