Skip to main content

India's undernourished rise from 189.9 to 194.6 million in 2011-15; poor, hungry fail to benefit from growth: FAO

 
A new report, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) has made a startling revelation: During the first half of this decade, India’s undernourished population, in absolute terms, increased from 189.9 million in 2010-12 to 194.6 in 2014-16. Released to mark the World Food Day, which fell on October 16, the report is titled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World”.
While India can console itself that, in percentage terms, the undernourished population in the country went slightly down during the period in question (between 2010-12 and 2014-16) from 15.6 to 15.2 per cent, there is reason to worry.
China, which is the other most populous country in the world having a big undernourished population, experienced a higher fall in the percentage of undernourished from 11.7 to 9.3. In fact, in absolute terms, too, China’s undernourished population went down from 163.2 million to 133.8 million between 2010-12 and 2014-16.
Of course, there is a consolation: Pakistan’s undernourished population went up from 38.3 million to 41.4 million during this period. It simultaneously registered a rise the percentage of the undernourished – from 21.8 per cent in 2010-12 to 22.0 2014-16.
On the other hand, however, Bangladesh witnessed fall in absolute number of undernourished during the period from 26.5 million to 26.3 million during the period, with the percentage of undernourished falling from 17.3 to 16.4 during the period.
Overall, India witnessed a 36 per cent fall in the undernourished population since 1990-92, as against China’s 60.9 per cent, Bangladesh’s 49.9 per cent, and Pakistan’s just 12.4 per cent.
The FAO report notes, “Changes in large populous countries, notably China and India, play a large part in explaining the overall hunger reduction trends in the developing regions. Rapid progress was achieved during the 1990s, when the developing regions as a whole experienced a steady decline in both the number of undernourished and the proportion of undernourished (PoU).”
It adds, “This was followed by a slowdown in the PoU in the early 2000s before a renewed acceleration in the latter part of the decade, with the PoU falling from 17.3 percent in 2005–07 to 14.1 percent in 2010–12. Estimates for the most recent period, partly based on projections, have again seen a phase of slower progress, with the PoU declining to 12.9 percent by 2014–16.”
The report states that an evolution of hunger trends in India suggests, higher world food prices, observed since the late 2000s, may have not “entirely transmitted into domestic prices, especially in large countries such as India”, and “the extended food distribution programme also contributed to this positive outcome.”
Yet, the fact remains, the report underlines, “Higher economic growth (in India) has not been fully translated into higher food consumption, let alone better diets overall, suggesting that the poor and hungry may have failed to benefit much from overall growth.”
Pointing out that India still has “the second-highest estimated number of undernourished people in the world”, the report says, “India is home to a quarter of world’s 794.6 million hungry people, and it has more undernourished people than China.”

Comments

TRENDING

Trump’s research cuts 'may mean' advantage China: But will India leverage global brain drain to its advantage?

When I heard from a couple of NRI professionals—currently on work visas and engaged in research projects at American universities—that one of President Donald Trump's major policy thrusts was to cut federal funding to the country's top educational institutions, I was instantly reminded of what Prof. Kaushik Basu had said while delivering a lecture in Ahmedabad.

How the middle classes are returning to the BJP fold, be it Delhi or Gujarat: Mahakumbh, Sitharaman's budget

Whatever reasons may be offered for the Aam Aadmi Party's defeat in Delhi—whether it was the BJP's promises of more freebies than AAP, the shedding of ultra-nationalist slogans, or the successful demolition of Arvind Kejriwal's "Mr. Clean" image—my recent interaction with a group of middle-class individuals highlighted a notable trend. Those who had just begun to sit on the fence were now once again returning to the BJP fold.

How to turn India's e-waste problem, third largest, into opportunity? Simple: Offer industry incentives!

How should one interpret a major problem that may be bogging down a private consultant while preparing an industry-friendly report on a situation that adversely impacts society—especially when the consultant sees little possibility of progress in the supposed desired direction?

Mystical, mysterious, nature's marvel? Truth behind Gujarat’s so-called disappearing temple

I was a little surprised to read a story in Business Today, a publication that should have nothing to do with religion or spirituality, let alone superstition. Carried as one of the choices by Google News, whose algorithm decides which stories to feature, the story attempts to describe a natural phenomenon using terms such as "mysterious," "mystical," "marvel of nature," and "intriguing."

Google powered AI refuses to correct grammar of a 'balanced' piece on Trump sending chained immigrants to India!

This is a continuation of my blog on how, while the start-up-developed AI app DeepSeek is being criticized for consistently rejecting content related to China or Maoism, there appears to be no mention in Western media about why another app, developed by the powerful Google, Gemini, remains silent on Indian political issues.  

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

  The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.  I don't know who owns this site, for there is nothing on it in the About Us link. It merely says, the Nashik Corporation  site   "is an educational and news website of the municipal corporation. Today, education and payment of tax are completely online." It goes on to add, "So we provide some of the latest information about Property Tax, Water Tax, Marriage Certificate, Caste Certificate, etc. So all taxpayer can get all information of their municipal in a single place.some facts about legal and financial issues that different city corporations face, but I was least interested in them."  Surely, this didn't intere...

World Hijab Day? Ex-Muslim women observe Feb 1 as No Hijab Day, insist: 'Put it on a Man'

I didn't know that there could ever be a thing as World Hijab Day until I received an email alert from Maryam Namazie of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), stating that several ex-Muslim women's groups had observed the same day—February 1—as No Hijab Day! According to Namazie, the day "was created on February 1 as a direct response to World Hijab Day" to "illuminate the coercive and oppressive realities of the hijab as a pillar of sex apartheid and a war on women."

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

Why burn Manusmriti? Why not preserve it to demonstrate, display historicity of casteism?

In a significant Facebook post, Rana Singh, former associate professor of English at Patna University, has revealed something that few seem to know. Titled "The Shudras in Manusmriti", Singh says,  because Manusmriti is discussed so often, he thought of reading it himself. “This book likely dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the presence of contradictory statements suggests that it is not the work of a single author,” he says in his Facebook post in Hindi, written in 2022 and recently reshared.