India on Saturday rejected the Global Hunger Report 2022, which ranked the country at 107 among 121 countries. Last year, India was ranked 101st but this time it slipped further in the index that tracks hunger globally.
In a detailed and hard-hitting response, the government today said that a consistent effort is yet again visible to taint India's image as a nation that does not fulfill the food security and nutritional requirements of its population. "Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index," the Ministry of Women and Child Development said, adding that the index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. The ministry further said that 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 estimate of the Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000," it added. The hunger report is not only disconnected from ground reality but also chooses to deliberately ignore efforts made by the government to ensure food security for the population, especially during the Covid, the ministry said. Taking a one-dimensional view, it added, the report lowered the country’s rank based on the estimate of the Proportion of the Undernourished (PoU) population for India at 16.3 per cent. "The FAO estimate is based on "Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)" Survey Module conducted through Gallop World Poll, which is an “opinion poll” based on “8 questions” with a sample size of “3000 respondents”," the statement said, adding that the data collected from a minuscule sample for a country of India’s size through FIES has been used to compute PoU value for the country which is not only wrong and unethical but also reeks of obvious bias. The publishing agencies of the report have evidently not done their due diligence before releasing the rank, the minister said. "The matter was taken up with FAO not to use such estimates based on FIES survey module data in July 2022 as the statistical output of the same will not be based on merit. Though an assurance was forthcoming that there will be further engagement on this issue, the publication of the Global Hunger Index report irrespective of such factual considerations is regrettable," it said.