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"Hunger in India: What the Numbers Say and What the Government Claims"



    People in India are having a tough time, especially compared to their neighbours like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. This info comes from something called the Global Hunger Index, which ranks countries on how well they're dealing with hunger. Unfortunately, India ranks 111 out of 125, which means only 14 countries are doing worse. 

    Now, here's the puzzle: Is India worse off than its neighbours, or is something else going on? Some people think there might be a plan to make India look bad. To understand this better, we need to know more about the Global Hunger Index.

    The Global Hunger Index is a report made by groups from Ireland and Germany. It's all about hunger and nutrition problems worldwide. And it doesn't have good news for India. The report says that 16.6% of people in India are undernourished, 3.1% of young kids die before they turn five, and 58.1% of young women have anaemia. Plus, India has the highest child-wasting rate, which is when kids are too thin for their height, at 18.7%. The Indian government doesn't agree with this report. They say it needs help with how it measures hunger and malnutrition. They use their own tool, the Portion Tracker app, which they say shows a much lower child-wasting rate, around 7.2%, not 18.7% like the report says.

 

    The government also mentions that they're working on fixing these problems. They have programs like Mission Saksham, Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 to help fight hunger. They've also provided a lot of food to millions of people through different schemes.

    But here's the twist: India's position on this index has dropped four places since the previous year. This makes us wonder how India can be praised for reducing poverty but is also seeing more hunger and malnutrition. In July 2023, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford released the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). This index brought to light a significant achievement in India. Over 15 years, from 2005/2006 to 2019/2021, a remarkable 415 million people managed to escape poverty.

                                                

    The government has another point. They say the Global Hunger Index mainly looks at kids' health, and the results might not be true for the whole country. They also argue that the index calculates the number of undernourished people based on a survey with just 3,000 people, which might not be enough.

So, in simple terms, the Global Hunger Index says India has a big problem with hunger and malnutrition. The Indian government disagrees and thinks the way they measure it is wrong. It's a complicated issue, and there's more to it than what meets the eye

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