Thread by @TheAtulMishra

India is a hungry country, shame on PM Modi - a thread

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) launched on Thursday ranked India at 101 position out of a total 116 countries. India is also among the 31 countries where hunger has been identified as serious.

So is #GHI a UN 🇺🇳 curated list?
Is it an international body?

Umm no, GHI is an index created by a non-profit organization named International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). It was established only in 2006.

So how is the so called hunger index calculated?

The GHI is calculated on four parameters:

1) Undernourishment: calculated by the share of the population whose caloric intake is insufficient.

2) Child Wasting: Kids who have low weight for their height

3) Child Stunting: Kids who have low height for their age

4) Child Mortality: It is calculated by the mortality rate of children under the age of five.

Components 1 and 4 have 33.33% weight and 16.66% weight is attached to components 2 and 3.

Does the GHI actually represent hunger situation in India?

no. No. NO. A BIG NO.

GHI is classic distortion of data. Firstly, It enforces western standards on Indian population. And secondly it’s more of an incomplete health index of sorts and not a hunger index, as only 1 out of 4 parameters actually deals with hunger.

Coming back to the core parameters, Child Wasting and Child Stunting aren’t based on a universal standard but on weight and height as per western parameters.

Forget kids, the height and weight of even Indian adults are lower than that of the people in the west. but does that mean Indians are malnourished?

Weight and height of children are not solely determined by food intake but are an outcome genetics, the environment, sanitation and much more.

Moreover, GHI is primarily concerned with the child’s health, it excludes 90 per cent of India’s population which is above the age of five. So, GHI is an index that gives majority weightage to India’s minority population. Does that represent hunger situation in India? No.

The menace of undernourished population has been already addressed with the Public Distribution System (PDS). More than 70 per cent of India is covered under National Food Security. There are leakages that the government needs to fix.

Most of the deaths of the children under the age of five has nothing to do with hunger and malnourishment. Child mortality has consistently declined in India in the last two decades. However India keeps falling in the GHI rankings.

Funny thing is that Cuba that suffered massive food crisis this year is in top 10 countries as per GHI.

Indian media should stop following the GHI and sensationalising a mindless index which only exists to earn charity and donation money. #HungerIndex