It must be noted that Undernourishment data are provided by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and child mortality data are sourced from the U.N. Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME). Child wasting and stunting data are drawn from the joint database of UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, among others. GHI also has taken data of child stunting and wasting from India’s Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey 2016-2018 (CNNS) National Report published in 2019 by Modi government itself, and therefore it cannot say its own data are wrong.
Modi government’s objections seem to have come because GHI has exposed their dismal performance, and it is most likely that India will fail to achieve zero hunger target by 2030, as envisaged by SDGs. Undernourishment is recognised as one indicator for UN SDG 2.1 on ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all. Reducing child stunting and wasting by 2025 is not only an internationally agreed World Health Assembly target, but also recognised indicators to track progress on SDG 2.2 on ending all forms of malnutrition. Reducing preventable deaths of children under five years of age is listed as SDG 3.2. The GHI 2021 clearly showed that Modi government is going to fail in achieving all these internationally agreed targets, and will not have any saving face, since it has been unmasked.
The unmasking of Modi government at this time is sensitive enough to attract counter attack on validity of the GHI, since the government is completing half of the second term next month, just before crucial Vidhan Sabha elections due early next year in 2022, which includes Uttar Pradesh that sends 80 Lok Sabha seats. People are likely to review the performance on reducing hunger and poverty of the Modi Raj during the last seven and half year. Moreover, 2024 general election is also not too far. Hence, Modi government’s becoming defensive and aggressive on GHI is understandable.
GHI 2021 ranked this country 101th, a sharp fall from 55th in 2014. Not only that, the severity of Hunger has also remained serious with a score of 27.5 in 2021. Only 15 countries in the world – Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, Haiti, Liberia, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Central African Republic, Yemen, and Somalia – performed worse than India. There are ten countries in between for which sufficient data is not available.
The GHI 2021 clearly showed that India is performing worse than even all the neighbouring countries in South Asia. Even Pakistan was placed at 92, Nepal and Bangladesh at 76, and Sri Lanka at 65 which showed their performance much better than India. India is among the 31 countries where hunger has been identified as serious. India ranked 94 among 107 countries in the GHI last year. Modi government not only raised objection for India’s fall in the GHI, but also contested the better performance of the neighbouring countries on the index.
GHI tracks hunger and malnutrition across countries using four indicators – undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and child mortality. Since 2012, the proportion of undernourished in the population and prevalence fo wasting in children under five years has been rising, which are now 15.3 and 17.3 per cent respectively. During 2006-2012, these were however declining from 19.6 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. In 2012, these were 15 and 15.1 respectively. These have bogged down India’s progress on hunger, though there have been some progress in prevalence of stunting in children under five which fell from 38.7 per cent in 2012 to 34.7 per cent in 2021, and under-five mortality rate fell from 5.2 per cent to 3.4 per cent during this period.
The level of child stunting was 34.7 per cent in during 2016-18 in India, which the GHI considered ‘still very high’. However, at 17.3 per cent – according to the latest data – India has the highest child wasting rate of all countries in the Global Hunger Index. This rate is slightly higher than it was in 1998-1999, when it was 17.1 per cent.
When the country passed on the baton to our new PM in 2014, the GHI of that year had praised India for bringing the country out of 'alarming' level of incidence of hunger within 10 years, though it was categorised as 'serious'. India ranked above Bangladesh and Pakistan but trailed behind even Nepal and Sri Lanka. Now we are trailing behind all the countries in South Asia. It shows the priority of our Government.
Thus India has lost seven and half precious year towards zero hunger by 2030. Since COVID-19 has further pushed millions of people to poverty and extreme poverty, Modi government cannot conceal its dismal performance by only blaming the GHI or even questioning what the earlier governments did for this country? (IPA Service)
HUNGER IN INDIA AT PRECARIOUS LEVEL, WORSENING FURTHER IN MODI RAJ
UNDERNOURISHED IN POPULATION AND WASTING IN CHILDREN ON THE RISE
Dr. Gyan Pathak - 2021-10-16 14:30
On the yardstick of Hunger, Modi Government is performing worse than its predecessors, neighbouring countries, and majority of the countries of the world. One can see it through the data of Global Hunger Indices for several years in succession that contradict all the tall claims and big talks of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his government and his fan club. It has put them in defensive mode and hence they levelled the ranking and methodology “devoid of ground reality and fact”, though the data were in fact already in public domain in the form of FAO, UNICEF, and UN compilations, and were not only uncontested earlier but also relied upon.