The Government on Fridaychallenged India’s poor rank-ing in the the Global HungerIndex 2021 and the metho-dology used calling it “de-void of ground reality andfacts”.

The Index launched onThursday ranked India at 101position of 116 countries. In-dia is also among the 31countries where hunger hasbeen identifi�ed as serious.India ranked 94 among 107countries in the Global Hun-ger Index (GHI) released lastyear.

‘Unscientifi�c method’“The publishing agencies ofthe Global Hunger Report,Concern Worldwide andWelt Hunger Hilfe have notdone their due diligence be-fore releasing the report.The methodology used byFAO is unscientifi�c. Theyhave based their assessmenton the results of a ‘four ques-tion’ opinion poll, which wasconducted telephonically byGallup,” the Ministry of Wo-men and Child Developmentsaid in a statement.

According to the Index,

only 15 countries fare worsethan India. They are PapuaNew Guinea (102), Afghanis-tan and Nigeria (103), Congo(105), Mozambique and Sier-ra Leone (106), Timor-Leste(108), Haiti (109), Liberia(110), Madagascar (111), De-mocratic Republic of Congo(112), Chad (113), Central Afri-can Republic (114), Yemen(115) and Somalia (116).

India was also behindmost of the neighbouringcountries. Pakistan wasplaced at 92, Nepal and Ban-gladesh at 76 and Sri Lankaat 65.

The Government has con-

tested the performance ofthese neighbouring coun-tries on the Index.

“It is noted with surprise,from the FAO report ‘TheState of Food Security andNutrition in the World 2021’,that other four countries ofthis region — Afghanistan,Bangladesh, Nepal and SriLanka — have not been af-fected at all by COVID-19pandemic induced loss ofjob/business and reductionin income levels, rather theyhave been able to improvetheir position on the indica-tor ‘proportion of under-nourished population’ by

4.3%, 3.3%, 1.3% and 0.8%points respectively duringthe period 2018-20 over 2017-19," the statement adds.

The GHI scores are basedon the values of four compo-nent indicators — under-nourishment, child wasting,child stunting and child mor-tality. Each country’s GHIscore is classifi�ed by severity,from low to extremelyalarming.

Undernourishment dataare provided by the Foodand Agriculture Organisa-tion and child mortality dataare sourced from the U.N. In-ter-agency Group for Child

Mortality Estimation. Childwasting and stunting dataare drawn from the joint da-tabase of UNICEF, the WorldHealth Organization and theWorld Bank, among others.

It is the FAO report usedfor assessing undernourish-ment that the Governmenthas questioned. This is alsothe only indicator in the re-port that has shown deterio-ration in India, the otherthree either show an im-provement or have remainedunchanged.

Figures on the riseThe Government has ques-tioned the poll-based assess-ment that “has increased thevalue of ‘proportion of popu-lation undernourished’ from14.0% for the previous pe-riod 2017-19 to 15.3% for thelatest period 2018-20,” ac-cording to an offi�cial.

According to the FAO re-port, prevalence of under-nourishment in a populationis calculated in a very scien-tifi�c manner that includeshabitual dietary energy in-take levels, information onthe population structure andmedian height in each sexand age.

Hunger Index: poor ranking devoid of ground reality and facts, says Govt.Ranked at 101, India is behind neighbours like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri LankaJAGRITI CHANDRANEW DELHI