Worst performance among neighboring countries.
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with an estimated more than 7 percent GDP growth a year. Still the country has a population with a significant percent of people living without having a square meal per day, says the Global Hunger Index (GHI) released on Tuesday.
According to the report released by US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), India stands 97 in the list of 118 countries, showing the worst performance among neighboring countries.
In Asia, India stands better than only Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, Pakistan, and North Korea and has a worse than developing country average score of 21.3.
India scored 28.5 on a scale of 0 to 100 showing a marginal improvement over the previous period. While all other neighboring countries showed better performance with China ranked 29 followed by Nepal (72), Myanmar (75), Sri Lanka (84) and Bangladesh (90), India’s arch rival Pakistan did a worse performance with a rank of 107.
Though the country has made rigorous improvement since 200o, India still remains as a country having serious hunger condition.
The report further states that if the hunger declines at the same rate as the report finds it has since 1992, the world will not achieve the target to end hunger by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal deadline of 2030 and India will be one of the nations remaining on the list.
“If hunger declines at the same rate as the report finds it has since 1992, more than 45 countries – including India, Pakistan, Haiti, Yemen, and Afghanistan – will still have “moderate” to “alarming” hunger scores in the year 2030, far short of the goal to end hunger by that year,” said the report.
“India is slated to become the world’s most populous nation in just six years, and it’s crucial that we meet this milestone with a record of ensuring that the expected 1.4 billion Indians have enough nutritious food to lead healthy and successful lives,” said PK Joshi, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Director for South Asia.
“India is making tremendous progress—but we have significant challenges ahead,” he added.
GHI is a multidimensional statistical tool used to describe the state of countries’ hunger situation. It takes into consideration indicators like undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and child mortality.