World Food Day 2021: India Ranks 101st on the Global Hunger Index Rankings

According to the Global Hunger Index released by the Food and Agriculture Organization across the world, India ranked 101st among 116 countries worldwide. Ironically the report was published on October 16th which is also observed globally as World Food Day.

A day that marks the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN. It is also a day that is aimed at tackling and eradicating global hunger across the world.

Although much outrage has been shown by the Women and Child Development (WCD)  Minister Smriti Irani over the calculation of the rankings on the Global Hunger Index.

It is still a very sad fact that India as a country ranked below Pakistan (92), Bangladesh (76), and Nepal (76) who have all fared better in the aspect of feeding its citizens than India according to the rankings published in the global human index.

The fall in rankings from 94th in 2020 to 101st in 2021 also has to be attributed to the spread of the COVID pandemic across India.

According to the stats published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs an additional 70-161 million people are facing food crisis due to the spread of the covid pandemic across the world.

Another factor that affected this fall in rankings could be the inclusion of 9 other countries in the rankings in 2021.

Although a score of 27.5 in the GHI which India achieved in 2021 is considered serious it is still way lower compared to India's GHI score of 37.5 which fell in the alarming category in the 2000s.

What is GHI?

Global Hunger Index is the ranking of countries worldwide a jointly published by the US-based Concern Worldwide and Germany-based Welthungerhilfe

It calculates global hunger on the following basis:

Under Nourishment:

Share of the population with insufficient caloric intake.

Child Wasting:

Share of children under age five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition.

Child Stunting:

Share of children under age five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition.

Child Mortality:

The mortality rate of children under the age of five.

Though India showed improvement in indicators such as the under-5 mortality rate. The prevalence of stunting among children and the prevalence of undernourishment owing to inadequate food remained high.