New Delhi: Indian authorities expressed its objection to the latest Global Hunger Report 2021, which has placed India in the 101 position behind Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal; a seven point fall from the previous year.
Condemning the report released by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, the Ministry of Women and Child Development issued a statement saying, “It is shocking to find that the Global Hunger Report 20201 has lowered the rank of India on the basis of food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimate on proportion of 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 also said that 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 availability of food grains per capita during the period."
According to the Indian government, the report completely disregarded the government’s massive effort to ensure food security of the entire population during the Covid period. "The opinion poll does not have a single question on whether the respondent received any food support from the government or other sources," the statement continued.
The Indian authorities also expressed its surprise on the FAO report ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021’, which ignored the other four countries of this region – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka- affected by Covid-19 pandemic induced loss of job/business and reduction in income levels. According to the report they have been able to improve their position on the indicator ‘proportion of undernourished population’ by 4.3%, 3.3%, 1.3% and 0.8% points respectively during the period 2018-20 over 2017-19.
The statement also urged the publishers of Global Hunger Report 2021 and FAO to have a look at the facts available in public domain to know India's efforts in alleviating hunger and bring down poverty.
However, as per this report, India’s position on the first indicator, child mortality, has improved in 2021 compared with 2020. Position on two indicators, i.e., child wasting and child stunting, has remained unchanged in 2021 compared with 2020.
