Modi govt rejects Global Hunger Index, calls it an attempt to tarnish India’s image

As anticipated, the Narendra Modi government this year again rejected the Global Hunger Index (GHI) – which placed India in 107th position out of a total of 121 countries the global body surveyed – calling it an attempt to “taint” India’s image. This is the second year in a row that the government has rejected the GHI rankings.

In the latest report of the GHI, India’s rank has slipped six places to 107th position, which is behind all South Asian countries except war-torn Afghanistan. India also ranks below Sri Lanka (64), Nepal (81), Bangladesh (84), and Pakistan (99). Afghanistan (109) is the only country in South Asia that performs worse than India on the index. The report found India’s GHI score of 29.1 on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero representing no hunger.

On the other hand, China, in contrast, was among the countries collectively ranked between 1 and 17 for least hunger.

The Global Hunger Index scores are based on the values of four component indicators –undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality.

“A consistent effort is yet again visible to taint India’s image as a nation that does not fulfil the food security and nutritional requirements of its population,” the women and child development ministry said in a statement. “Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index,” the women and child development ministry said in a statement.

The government has questioned the GHI’s methodology, as it did last year. “The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues,” it said.

“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.

It is not only the GHI, but other global bodies have raised serious concerns about the country’s performance on human development parameters such as education and health. The UN’s Human Development Index 2021 published in August also presented a very grim picture of the country’s position in various parameters.

In 2021, India was ranked 101 among 116 countries by the hunger index. Since the total number of countries evaluated between the previous year and 2022 varies and there are some differences in the source data, India’s rankings for 2022 and 2021 aren’t comparable, the GHI 2022 said.

In 2014, India’s hunger score was 28.2, compared to 29.1 this year. This marks a worsening of the country’s hunger crisis between 2014 and 2022, since the greater the hunger score, the poorer the performance of the country, reported Hindustan Times.

‘Rahul Gandhi takes a swipe at Modi’s hyperbole’

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday attacked the Centre over India slipping down to 107th position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022 and asked till when the RSS-BJP will work to “weaken” India by misleading the people from reality, according to NDTV.

“India ranks 107th out of 121 countries on hunger and malnutrition! Now the prime minister and his ministers will say, ‘Hunger is not increasing in India, rather people are not feeling hungry in other countries,” Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

-INDIA NEWS STREAM