India's Hungry Millions

The first Millennium Development Goal signed by 189 nations in 2000, aimed to “halve hunger by 2015”.

- Shahana Banerjee

Unfortunately, even two years after that deadline, the recent Global Hunger Index (GHI) report released on October 12, 2017, by Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), ranked India at a dismal 100th position.

In a statement, IFPRI said, “Given that three-quarters of South Asia’s population resides in India, the situation in that country strongly influences South Asia’s regional score (30.9). India’s consistent fall into the upper half of the serious hunger levels is one of the main factors pushing South Asia to the category of worst performing region on the GHI this year, followed closely by Africa South of the Sahara.” Surprisingly, even Iraq and North Korea are ranked higher at 78 and 93, respectively, while Cuba, Chile, and Turkey, with a score of less than 5, are ranked best among all developing nations.

Global trends

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2017, “the estimated number of undernourished people across the world has increased from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016. Even as the prevalence of stunting fell from 29.5% to 22.9% between 2005 and 2016, global trends reveal that as many as 17 million children were affected by child wasting in 2016. Favourably, the rate of breastfed infants has seen an increase from 36% in 2005 to 43% in 2016.Considered to be one of the single largest preventive impact on child mortality, improving rates of breastfeeding is expected to prevent up to 8,20,000 child deaths every year.”

India’s dismal state