India lags behind Pak in reducing hunger level: Report

[ChinaToday]

NEW DELHI: India lags behind neighbouring China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in reducing hunger level, says the 2012 Global Hunger Index (GHI) released by US-based International Food Policy and Research Institute.

India is ranked 65th out of 79 countries in GHI, behind China at 2nd place, Pakistan at 57 and Sri Lanka at 37.

"India has lagged behind in improving its Global Hunger Index (GHI) score despite strong economic growth. After a small increase between 1996 and 2001, India?s GHI score fell only slightly, and the latest GHI returned to about the 1996 level," International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI) said in the latest report.

This stagnation in GHI scores occurred during a period when India's gross national income (GNI) per capita almost doubled, rising from about 1,460 to 2,850 constant 2005 international dollars between 1995?97 and 2008?10, it said.

When comparing GHI scores with GNI per capita, it must be emphasised that India's latest GHI score is based partly on outdated data, it added.

The report said that given that India has failed to monitor national trends in child undernutrition for more than six years, any recent progress in the fight against child undernutrition cannot be taken into account by the 2012 GHI.

"Nonetheless, even bearing in mind that possible recent advances in the fight against child undernutrition are not yet visible in the latest GHI, India's track record is disappointing," it observed and said generally, higher incomes are associated with less hunger.

The 2012 Global Hunger Index, published jointly by IFPRI, Concern Worldwide, and Welthungerhilfe, shows the progress made in reducing the proportion of hungry people in the world.

India lags behind China, Pak in reducing hunger level: Report - The Times of India

 

[Asskicker]

Yeah Indians are poor,Chinese and Pakistani's are ultra rich.Happy....?.Now go to sleep.

 

[livingdead]

Yeah Indians are poor,Chinese and Pakistani's are ultra rich.Happy....?.Now go to sleep.

Man we have higher per capita income than pakistan but we have more hunger. Something is not right, dont blame others when they point it out.

 

[ChinaToday]

India's score in the 'Global Hunger Index' back to 1996 levels
China, India's nearest economic rival has the second best score in the world

Despite steady economic growth and robust social sector spending, India's score in Global Hunger Index has returned back to the 1996 level raising questions over the speed at which it has brought down the proportion of undernourished people, underweight children and child mortality.

According to the findings of the Global Hunger Index 2012 by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), India’s latest score in the Hunger Index (GHI) has once again returned to the 1996 levels, after showing a minor deterioration between 1996 and 2001. Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe also contributed in framing the annual Hunger Index

In 1990, India’s GHI score as monitored by IFPRI was 30.3, which fell to 22.6 in 1996. But again rose to 24.2 in 2001 and stood at 22.9 in 2012, much closer to 1996 levels. The lower the index, lower is number of incidence of hunger. Overall, India is ranked 65th among 79 major countries where hunger is prevalent, much below smaller nations like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan and Nepal.

India’s nearest economic rival, China has the second best score in GHI among the entire global world. Not, only that even Bangladesh has overtaken India on a range of social indicators including how fast it has reduced child mortality, the report showed

This effectively means that from 1996 onwards, India’s hunger index has shown little improvement, despite India’s gross national income (GNI) per capita almost doubling between 1995-97 to 2008-10, the report said. The GHI index combines three equally weighted indicators like undernourishment, child underweight and child mortality in one index.

"In India, 43.5 per cent of the children under five are underweight, which accounts for almost two-thirds of the country's alarmingly high GHI score. From 2005-2012, India is ranked second to last on child underweight -- below Ethiopia, Niger, Nepal and Bangladesh," the report said.
Later talking to reporters, senior officials from IFPRI said that the biggest challenge in India is to translate the good sounding intentions into practical results on ground.

“India has lagged behind in improving its GHI score despite strong economic growth. After a small increase between 1996 and 2001, India’s GHI score fell only slightly, and the latest GHI returned to about the 1996 level,” the report said.

In comparison, China had a managed to consistently lower its hunger index scores from 11.8 in 1990 to 8.9 in 1996 to 6.7 in 2001 and in 2012 it stood at 5.1, among the lowest in the world.

For India, the report acknowledges that it has arrived at that conclusion by including child mortality data from 2010, FAO data on undernourishment from 2006–08, and India’s latest available nationally representative data on child underweight collected in 2005–06.

“Given that the Government of India has failed to monitor national trends in child under-nutrition for more than six years, any recent progress in the fight against child under-nutrition cannot be taken into account by the 2012 GHI. Nonetheless, even bearing in mind that possible recent advances in the fight against child under nutrition are not yet visible in the latest GHI, India’s track record is disappointing,” the report said.

Globally, the report said that world hunger has somewhat declined since 1990, but still remains at an ‘serious’. The highest GHI scores are in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

“South Asia reduced its GHI score significantly between 1990 and 1996 – mainly by reducing the share of underweight children—but could not maintain the rapid progress,” the report said.

It said sub-Saharan Africa made less progress in reducing hunger since 1990s, but caught up with South Asia since the turn of the millennium with its 2012 GHI score falling below that of South Asia.

India's score in the 'Global Hunger Index' back to 1996 levels

 

[Paan Singh]

Our population brings worst ranks for us.Even after 10 yrs,i m certain that we will remain at same position wrt paksitan due to population.

 

[livingdead]

Our population brings worst ranks for us.Even after 10 yrs,i m certain that we will remain at same position wrt paksitan due to population.

Its not because of population, its because of inequality. There should be a basic minimum level of poverty below which everybody should be supported by govt.

 

[Paan Singh]

Its not because of population, its because of inequality.

Population matters and leave other issues like political mess

 

[mfreak]

Its not population. Its mismanagement and a lack of accountability. India is the 2nd largest producer of food grains, yet 20% of its population goes hungry. Watch this video to see why. These guys send rockets to space, but cant build 4 walls and a roof, to store food grains.

 

[Arav_Rana]

No comment about rest counties . Just congrats for scoring well.. Hope reality is also same ( for pak )
India is hunger becz of bad politicians and poor management.We have food, and food supply chain also, but problem is with government people, most of the food don't reach to people. and we have very poor storage facilities. Becz of this every year we lost a good % of food ( wheat, rise etc )
We have surplus wheat and by improving our system, we can solve this problem easily.

 

[Rusty]

Our population brings worst ranks for us.Even after 10 yrs,i m certain that we will remain at same position wrt paksitan due to population.

Population is not a factor. Data is calculated by percentages, which negates population size.

 

[Windjammer]

'India’s score alarming on hunger map’

NEW DELHI: India ranks 65th out of 79 countries on the Global Hunger Index, a new report by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide has said. The report has sharply criticized India for not moving fast enough to reduce malnourishment, and has said that its nutritional indicators are far worse than its economic indicators merit.

India's ranking has not changed since 2011, when it was 67th of 81 countries.

The GHI is composed using three equally weighted indices: the proportion of people undernourished, child mortality, and the proportion of underweight children. India's GHI score of 22.9 (where anything over 10 is "very serious") is back to its 1996 levels. Of the three components of the index, India performs the worst on children underweight: it is second to last of 129 countries on the proportion of its children who are underweight - 43.5 per cent. Only Timor-Leste is in worse shape.

The authors of the report point out what health and nutrition experts have been saying for the last few years: India's poor monitoring of malnutrition is seriously hampering efforts to understand and tackle the problem. India has not published national data on nutrition since the last National Family Health Survey which came out in 2005-6, while no new data is available for another two years.

"Nonetheless, even bearing in mind that possible recent advances in the fight against child undernutrition are not yet visible in the latest GHI, India's track record is disappointing...[G]iven India's per capita income, it has higher GHI scores than would be expected. Between 1990 and 1996, India's ...GHI score was falling commensurate

with economic growth. After 1996, however, the disparity between economic development and progress in the fight against hunger widened, and India moved further away from the predicted line," the report says. "This stagnation in GHI scores occurred during a period when India's gross national income per capita almost doubled," the authors observe.

'India’s score alarming on hunger map’ - The Times of India

 

[Desert Fox]

Man we have higher per capita income than pakistan but we have more hunger. Something is not right, dont blame others when they point it out.

The only thing about Pakistan is that we have less mouths to feed compared to india regardless of per capita income. Both countries are full of corruption and mismanagement so i guess that also plays a large part in the failure to eradicate (or decrease to an extent) poverty.

57th place, i think Pakistan still has a long way to go.

 

[mjnaushad]

Its not because of population, its because of inequality. There should be a basic minimum level of poverty below which everybody should be supported by govt.

That is the most terrible idea.... Many countries apply these (israel and UK but not sure) but this only leads to lazy people trying to get free money and corrupt politician making money.

 

[livingdead]

That is the most terrible idea.... Many countries apply these (israel and UK but not sure) but this only leads to lazy people trying to get free money and corrupt politician making money.

I dont think poor people will stop working in India if govt gives some basic safety net. The poor in UK is completely different, they have 40 inch lcd tvs.
I am talking about people who may die of hunger.

 

[eddieInUK]

Improve the Infrastructure for food Industry sounds like emergent job. Also the politician should care more about people.