India ranked 94 among 107 nations in the Global Hunger Index 2020 and is in the serious hunger category with experts blaming poor implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring, siloed approach in tackling malnutrition and poor performance by large states behind the low ranking.
Last year, India’s rank was 102 out of 117 countries. The neighbouring Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Pakistan too are in the serious category but ranked higher than India in this year’s hunger index.
While Bangladesh ranked 75, Myanmar and Pakistan are in the 78th and 88th position. Nepal in 73rd and Sri Lanka in 64th position are in moderate hunger category, the report showed.
Seventeen nations, including China, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI scores of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index, that tracks hunger and malnutrition, said the report.
It also showed the country recorded a 37.4 per cent stunting rate among children under five and a wasting rate of 17.3 per cent.
The under-five mortality rate stood at 3.7 per cent. Wasting is children who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition.
Stunting is children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition.
Data from 1991 through 2014 for Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan showed that stunting is concentrated among children from households facing multiple forms of deprivation, including poor dietary diversity, low levels of maternal education, and household poverty.
Experts think that poor implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring and siloed approaches to tackling malnutrition often result in poor nutrition indices.