Indian govt rubbishes Global Hunger Index report as 'unscientific, devoid of reality'

A day after India slipped to the 101st position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021 ​​of 116 countries, the Ministry of Women and Child Development issued a rebuttal to the publishers of the index. Dismissing the ranking as 'unscientific', the Centre alleged that the report is “devoid of ground reality". It also said that Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe have not done their “due diligence” before releasing the report.

While India was ranked 94th in 2020 among 116 countries, the rank dropped to 101 in the latest report published on Thursday. India's GHI score has also decreased from 38.8 in 2000 to the range of 28.8 to 7.5 between 2012 and 2021.

“It is shocking to find that the Global Hunger Report 20201 has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO estimate on the proportion of the undernourished population, which is found to be devoid of ground reality and facts and suffers from serious methodological issues. The publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, Concern Worldwide, and Welt Hunger Hilfe have not done their due diligence before releasing the report,” the statement read. 

Global Hunger Index 'unscientific': Govt

The Ministry also claimed that the methodology used by FAO was “unscientific”, adding there was no such method to measure undernourishment.

“The methodology used by FAO is unscientific. They have based their assessment on the results of a ‘four question’ opinion poll, which was conducted telephonically by Gallup. There is no scientific methodology to measure undernourishment like the availability of food grains per capita during the period.

The scientific measurement of undernourishment would require measurement of weight and height, whereas the methodology involved here is based on Gallup poll based on a pure telephonic estimate of the population,” the statement added. 

The release also stated that the GHI report completely disregards the India government’s massive effort to ensure food security of the entire population during the COVID period despite verifiable data being available for the same. 

The Global Hunger Index score is calculated on four indicators - undernourishment, child wasting (the share of children under 5 years of age, who are have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition), child stunting (children under five years who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition) and child mortality (the mortality rate of children under the age of 5).