India’s rank in Global Hunger Index drops to 102 out of 117 countries

India’s rank in the Global Hunger Index this year dropped to 102 out of 117 qualifying countries, which has put the country in the “serious” category. The other two categories worse than this are “alarming” and “extremely alarming”.

The index is a tool designed to “comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional and national levels”. It is “designed to raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger” and calls “attention to the areas of the world in greatest need of additional resources to eliminate hunger”. India ranked 95 in the index in 2010.

Countries worse placed than India this year are Sierra Leone, Uganda, Djibouti, Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Timor-leste, Haiti, Liberia, Zambia, Madagascar, Chad, Yemen and Central African Republic.

The index is based on four indicators – undernourishment, child stunting (stunted growth and development), child wasting (low weight for height) and child mortality.

India’s index score was 30.3 on the list of 117 countries – which dropped from 38.9 in 2005 and from 32 in 2010. India’s child wasting rate was “extremely high at 20.8%” – the highest rate of any country on which data was available. The child stunting rate was 37.9%, also considered very high.

India’s neighbours scored much better — Bangladesh ranked 88, Sri Lanka ranked 66, Pakistan ranked 94, Nepal ranked 73 and China ranked 25 in the list.

Countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal had made significant achievements in that the former recorded a decline from 58.5% to 49.2% between 1997 and 2011, while Nepal’s stunting rates dropped from 56.6% in 2001 to 40.1% in 2011.

The top rank was shared by 17 countries including Belarus, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine, Kuwait, Cuba.

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