India ranks 94th in Global Hunger Index; falls into 'serious' category

The Global Hunger Index 2020 report has ranked India at 94 among 107 countries. The index, published jointly by Welthungerhilfe (WHH) and Concern Worldwide was released on Friday. In the Global Hunger Index 2019, India was ranked at 102 out of 117 countries. At present, India falls behind nations like Nepal, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. Only 13 countries like Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Rwanda fared worse than India on the latest GHI.

The 2020 Global Hunger Index report terms hunger levels in India as 'serious' with a score of 27.2 out of 50. A score of 27.2 is a sign of improvement when compared to 38.9 in 2000, 37.5 in 2006 and 29.3 in 2012. The report adds India witnessed a decline in under-five mortality rate between 2000-2018 which was "driven largely by decreases in deaths from birth asphyxia or trauma, neonatal infections, pneumonia and diarrhea."

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Besides this, the report stated prevention of maturity, prevention of low birthweight as well as better antenatal care, education, and nutrition and lower cases of anemia and oral tobacco use as other significant factors that helped in reducing under-five mortality in India.

In its latest report, GHI puts worldwide hunger at 'moderate' level while warning that nearly 690 million people across the world are undernourished, 144 million suffer from stunting which is a symptom of undernutrition and 47 million children suffer from wasting, a symptom of acute undernutrition.

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The GHI severity scale determines hunger severity on a 100-point scale where zero is considered to be the best possible scale, i.e., no hunger and 100 is considered to be the worst. The GHI score for each country is classified by severity- low (less than 9.9), moderate (10-19.9), serious (20-34.9), alarming (35-49.9) and extremely alarming (above 50).

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