India dropped from 94th to 101st place among the 116 nations in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021, trailing its neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
Seventeen countries, including China, Turkey, and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI score of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index that tracks hunger and malnutrition said on Saturday.
Congress MP P Chidambaram, citing the report, said our score has worsened since 2014 in the 8 years of the Narendra Modi-led government.
"When will the Hon'ble PM address real issues like malnutrition, hunger, and stunting and wasting among children?" he asked on Twitter.
The report, prepared jointly by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe, termed the level of hunger in India "serious".
In 2021, India was ranked 101 out of 116 countries. Now with 121 countries in the list, it has dropped to the 107th rank. India's GHI score has also decelerated - from 38.8 in 2000 to the range of 28.2 - 29.1 between 2014 and 2022.
The government had last year slammed the report -- calling it "shocking" and "devoid of ground reality"-- after India fell below the 100th rank. The government claimed the methodology used to calculate the Global Hunger Index is unscientific.
"It is shocking to find that the Global Hunger Report 2021 has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO (UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation) 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 government had said in a statement.
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