Latest Global Hunger Index A Motivated Effort By A Few Western Countries
In the wake of economic disruptions caused by the unprecedented outbreak of Covid 19 when most of European countries were floundering, especially Germany and Ireland, it was India that had come to rescue of the entire world with mass manufacturing of its affordable Covid vaccines.
The government of India had also taken a series of economic measures including ensuring food security for its vast population. The Government in March 2020 had announced and ensured the distribution of additional free-of-cost food grains (Rice/Wheat) to about 80 Crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries at the scale of 5 Kg per person per month under the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), over and above the regular monthly NFSA foodgrains i.e., regular entitlements of their ration cards. Thereby, effectively doubling the quantity of monthly foodgrains being normally delivered to the NFSA households, so that the poor, needy and the vulnerable households/beneficiaries do not suffer on account of non-availability of adequate foodgrains during the times of economic crisis.
In 2022, India placed a short period ban on export of Rice, wheat and few other things. There was a hue and cry from certain West European countries both in the International Press and at the World Trade Organization. India just stood its ground.
The same set of clowns have come out with a new set of so called SURVEY ….only total idiots can display such vacancy in their “upperstory “. These Experts in their Global Hunger Index ( imagine carrying out such surveys after plundering Africa, Asia and Americas for nearly 400 years and fattening up ) have placed India at 107 position. Remember that Churchil guy who had killed million plus Indians In Bengal by seizing entire grain production and shipping it off to his “ hungry “ because of the Germans !!
Thus the Global Hunger Index (GHI) report for 2022, was slammed by the Govt of India. The index is nothing but a part of a consistent effort by Western Countries to taint the image of a fast rising India. These clowns want to project India as “a nation that does not fulfil the food security and nutritional requirements of its population”.
Their motivated index suffers from serious methodological issues. The GHI, jointly published by an obscure Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, non-government organisations ( very clever camouflage) from Ireland and Germany respectively. It supposedly measures and tracks hunger at the global, regional, and country levels.
Of the 121 countries on the GHI, India is ranked behind its neighbours Nepal (81), Pakistan (99), Sri Lanka (64), and Bangladesh (84). At 19.3 per cent, India’s child wasting rate is the highest in the world, the latest GHI report suggests. So why is Euro Union not trying to sign FTA with Pakistan, why are they interested to trade with “ poor” India ?
The Women and Child Development Ministry of India, in a statement, has said, “A consistent effort is yet again visible to taint India’s image as a nation that does not fulfil the food security and nutritional requirements of its population. Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index.”
Explaining its stance, the ministry said three out of the four indicators used for calculation of the index are related to health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population.
“The fourth and most important indicator estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000,” it said, when Indian population is over 1300 million !!! We this kind of survey, it can be easily shown that half of Ireland and Germany is starving and the other half is surviving by begging.
The report is not only disconnected from ground reality but also chooses to deliberately ignore efforts made by the government to ensure food security for the population, especially during the Covid pandemic, the government said.
Matter taken up with FAO
The Centre said the report lowers India’s rank based on the estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population for India at 16.3 per cent.
According to the statement, the matter was taken up with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), asking it to avoid using estimates based on FIES (Food Insecurity Experience Scale) survey module data in July 2022 as the “statistical output of the same will not be based on merit”.
“Though an assurance was forthcoming that there will be further engagement on this issue, the publication of the Global Hunger Index report irrespective of such factual considerations is regrettable,” the ministry added.
The per capita dietary energy supply in India, as estimated by FAO from the Food Balance Sheets, has been increasing year-on-year owing to enhanced production of major agricultural commodities in the country over the years and there is absolutely no reason why the country’s undernourishment levels should increase, the Centre said.
The ministry said the three other indicators apart from PoU, included in Global Hunger Index relate primarily to children viz. stunting, wasting and under 5 mortality.
“These indicators are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like drinking water, sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger, which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI. Calculating hunger based on mainly indicators relating to health indicators of children is neither scientific nor rational,” it said.
However the above explanations will not do. India too should start carrying out various types of such surveys on these selected and identified countries and give it wide publicity in India, China, rest of Asia, Africa and South America.
