India has slipped to the 101st position among 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2021 published on Thursday. India’s rank fell from 94 last year.
The report is prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe.
According to the report, India is in the “alarming” category with its GHI score decelerating from 38.8 in 2000 to the range of 28.8 – 27.5 between 2012 and 2021.
“Hunger is usually understood to refer to the distress associated with a lack of sufficient calories,” reads the report.
The Global Hunger Index score is calculated on four indicators — undernourishment, child wasting (the share of children under the age of five with low weight for their height), child stunting (children under the age of five with a low height for their age) and child mortality (the mortality rate of children under the age of five).
A total of 18 countries, including China, Kuwait and Brazil, shared the top rank with GHI score of less than five, the GHI report claims.
This year, the report accessed data from 135 countries but evaluated only 116 of them. The report detailing the index said that there was not sufficient data from the remaining 19 countries.
India was again the worst performer in the indicator measuring child wasting.
Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Yemen – were placed in the “alarming” category. Somalia is placed in the “extremely alarming” category.
Madagascar is the only country with an alarming 2021 GHI score (36.3) that is not experiencing conflict.
The report said that the world’s commitment to zero hunger was “tragically distant”.
“The number of active violent conflicts is on the rise. Violent conflict remains the main driver of hunger, exacerbated by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic,” it added.
