India improves in Global Hunger Index in 2005-14, inter-state differences remain

By Rajiv Shah
A new report, “2015 Global Hunger Index” has ranked India No 80th of 117 countries selected for calculating global hunger index (GHI). While this is better than Pakistan (No 93), this is no consolation, as it India’s ranking has been found to be lower than the other important neighbouring countries – China (No 21), Nepal (No 58), Sril Lanka (No 69), and Bangladesh (No 73).
Prepared by three western institutes, Concern Worldwide, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Welthungerhilfe, the report maps global hunger levels and identifies the improvements or the deterioration of food security in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, even as pointing out that there is a “complex relationship between hunger and conflict.”

Pointing out that GHI is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger globally, regionally, and by country, the report has looked into four major issues while calculating GHI:
· the proportion of undernourished people as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient caloric intake);
· the proportion of children under the age of five who suffer from wasting (that is, low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition);
· the proportion of children under the age of five who suffer from stunting (that is, low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition); and
· the mortality rate of children under the age of five (partially reflecting the fatal synergy of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments).

The report states, “South Asia’s GHI score declined at a moderate rate between 1990 and 2000, but then progress stalled between 2000 and 2005 before hunger levels dropped again between 2005 and 2015. This closely follows the trend of GHI scores for India, where nearly three-quarters of South Asia’s population lives.” Basing its calculations of the basis of the data available till 2014, when the UPA government was thrown out of power, the report states, “The decrease of more than 8 points in South Asia’s GHI score since 2005 may be largely attributed to recent successes in the fight against child undernutrition in India.”
The report underlines, “According to the most recent data from India, wasting in children fell from 20 percent to 15 percent between 2005–2006 and 2013–2014, and stunting fell from 48 percent to 39 percent in the same period.”

The report further says that all this was mainly due to “programmes and initiatives launched by India’s central and state governments in the past decade”, which, it adds, “seem to have made a difference for child nutrition.”

“The Government of India scaled up nutrition-specific interventions over the past decade”, the report says, adding, one of the interventions was “a final drive to expand the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme that aims to improve the health, nutrition, and development of children in India.”
The second major intervention, it says, was “the creation of the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM), a community-based health initiative designed to deliver essential health services to rural India.”
But the report complains, “Progress in reducing child undernutrition has been uneven across India’s states. While the reasons for the improvements—or lack thereof — are not entirely clear, one factor that seems to correlate with undernutrition in India is open defecation, which contributes to illnesses that prevent the absorption of nutrients.”
“Additionally”, it adds, “the low social status of women, which affects women’s health and nutrition, makes it more likely that babies will be born underweight.”

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

The Galgotia model: How India is losing the war on knowledge

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Galgotia is the face of 'quality education' as envisioned by those who never considered education a tool for social change or national uplift — and yet this is precisely the model Narendra Modi pursued in Gujarat as Chief Minister. In the mid-eighties, when many of us were growing up, 'Nirma' became one of the most popular advertisements on Doordarshan. Whether the product was any good hardly seemed to matter.

The 'glass cliff' at Galgotias: How a university’s AI crisis became a gendered blame game

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan* “She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and in her enthusiasm of being on camera, gave factually incorrect information.” These were the words used in the official press release by Galgotias University following the controversy at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. The statement came across as defensive, petty, and deeply insensitive.

Bangladesh goes to polls as press freedom concerns surface

By Nava Thakuria* As Bangladesh heads for its 13th Parliamentary election and a referendum on the July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus has urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests and prioritize the greater interests of the Muslim-majority nation, regardless of the poll outcomes.

Search This Blog