India’s Global Hunger Index increases from 100 to 103

India ranks at 103th position among 119 countries on The Global Hunger Index (GHI), says a report.

Leaving behind its neighboring countries such as China (ranking at 25^th position), Nepal (72), Myanmar (68), Sri Lanka (67), Bangladesh (86), India managed to stay behind Pakistan which has 106^th position on the index.

According to another report issued by Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, India is amongst the 45 countries facing the issue of ‘serious hunger levels’.

With Zero being the ideal score and more the 100 being undesired, the GHI ranks countries based on four parameters which are child mortality, undernourishment, child wasting and child stunting. The global hunger index formula for calculating the hunger conditions was revised which replaced ‘child underweight’, that was previously the prime indicator of undernourishment, with two new indicators —child wasting and stunting, both having equal weightage.

Even though it has been observed that the world collaboratively made a deep rooted improvement in overall health crisis reduction, the developments have not reached all its parts, with hunger and undernourishment prevailing in some areas.

The practice of the nations for forcibly displacing people requires immediate attention. Hunger is proving to be the ramification as well the causality of the displacement happening.

The report further added that the number of the people facing severe hunger conditions has spiked to staggering 124 million. The solution to the problem of undernourishment seems uncertain.

Impaired development observed in children has reached upto threatening 151 million with over 51 million children being wasted on a global scale. Exposed to the perilous conditions of climate change, internal and external conflicts or non performing governance, the situation seems to deteriorate.

However, the Global Hunger Index isn’t the only determinant of a country’s performance as the rank may thrust even with better scores. India’s score was recorded as 31.4 in 2017 and 31.1this year. However, despite the 0.3 improvement, its place on the index went down upto three places. This can be attributed to the better performance of other countries comparatively.

From standing at relatively lower ranks in previous years, India’s performance has degenerated continuously. Therefore, efforts should be made by the country to improve its performance and eradicate this major concerning issue.