India slips in global hunger index, New Delhi slams report
New Delhi: India said the Global Hunger Index suffers from “serious methodological issues" after the 2023 edition saw the country slip four places to rank 111 out of 125 countries. India ranked 107 out of 121 countries in 2022. This year, the GHI ranked Pakistan at 102, Bangladesh at 81, Nepal at 69 and Sri Lanka at 60.
South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa were the regions with the highest hunger levels. India reported the world’s highest child wasting rate of 18.7%, indicating acute undernutrition, as per the report released by the Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, non-government organizations from Ireland and Germany, respectively. In New Delhi, the ministry of women and child development said, “The GHI continues to be a flawed measure of hunger and does not reflect India’s true position.
The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. Three out of the four indicators used for the calculation of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population. The fourth and most important indicator, proportion of undernourished population (PoU), is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3,000.
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