Superpower, super hunger

The Washington-based International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI)recently released a report about the rankings of Global Hunger Index (GHI) of 119 countries worldwide. The GHI combines three indicators: child malnutrition, child mortality, and estimates of the proportion of people who are calorie-deficient. India's poor score in the ranking does compromise India's superpowr claims.

The following messages comes fromhere.

India ranks 93 among 116 developing countries in the global hunger index

India’s score on the index for 2003, the latest year for which data is available, was 25.73, worse than Sudan at 27.20 but better than Burkina Faso (25.80). The index, comprising three indices - child malnutrition, child mortality and estimates of the proportion of people who are calorie deficient - ranks countries on a 100-point scale, with 0 being the best and 100 being the worst. The worst country (Burundi) had an index value of 42.70 and the best (Belarus) had an index value of 1.59.

And what of the other members of the celebrated BRIC quartet, of which India is a part? Their index values are less than 10. Brazil—5.43, Russia—2.93 and China—8.23.

The report’s observations on India ties in with what the UN World Food Programme observes - that nearly 50 percent of the world’s hungry live in India. Around 35 percent of India’s population - 350 million - is considered food-insecure, consuming less than 80 percent of minimum energy requirements.

As reported by IndianPad Among the three indicators of GHI,

India ranks 117th for the prevalence of underweight children. Only Bangladesh and Nepal are worse-off.

The proportion of children found underweight in India, according to the latest figures is 47.5 per cent, which makes it worse than conflict-plagued, drought-stricken Sub-Saharan Africa, where the figure is some 30 per cent on average.