Global Hunger Index

India dropped two ranks to 67th of 84 developing countries in the International Food Policy Research Institutes annual Global Hunger Index for 2010. Even Sudan, North Korea and Pakistan rank higher than India. While the report released on Monday shows that the proportion of undernourished in India is decreasing, the worsening ranking indicates that other developing countries have done better in tackling hunger. The GHI ranks countries on a scale of 100--0 being the best score (no hunger) and 100 the worst. It is composed of three equally weighted indicators: the proportion of undernourished in the population, the prevalence of those underweight in children under five years and the underfive mortality rate. The figures for India are 22% (as of 2004-6), 43.5% (2003-8) and 6.9% as of 2008, respectively. These give India a composite GHI of 24.1, which is classified as alarming in terms of the food security situation. The strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo ranks at the bottom of the list of 84 countries with significant levels of hunger. The data has been compiled for 122 countries in all. The remaining 38 countries have a GHI of less than 5 and are not included in the rankings. No data has been recorded for highly developed countries. South Asia has the highest GHI of any region in the world, at 22.9. The region has, however, made greater progress since 1990 than sub-Saharan Africa, the report said. India is ranked below all other major South Asian countries: Sri Lanka is ranked 39th, Pakistan 52nd and Nepal 56th. India's hunger is not purely a product of its middleincome status. While economic progress and hunger levels tend to be inversely correlated (countries with higher gross national income typically have lower GHI scores), some countries are exceptions to the norm. China has lower hunger levels than its GNI per capita would suggest, while India has higher hunger levels than would be expected from its income per capita, calculations made by the reports authors show. The 2010 report focuses on child malnutrition, which is the biggest component of hunger worldwide. In India, high 2010 GHI scores are driven by high levels of children underweight resulting from the low nutritional and social status of women in the country, the report says.