India has been ranked 102 out of 117 countries, putting the country in ‘serious’ hunger category and slipping 9 places from 2015. This comes after ‘poor quality’ mid-day meals were reportedly being served to students in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
Over one in every five children in India is “wasted” (low weight for height), the highest for any country in the report. The share of wasting (or low weight for height) among children in India rose from 16.5 per cent in the 2008-2012 period to 20.8 per cent in 2014-2018. Just 9.6 per cent of all children between 6 and 23 months of age are fed a “minimum acceptable diet”, the report said.
The GHI score is calculated on four indicators — undernourishment; child wasting, the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (that is, who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition); child stunting, children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition; and child mortality, the mortality rate of children under the age of five.
