India has dropped to 107th place in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) in 2022, from 101st place in 2021. Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe collaborated on the GHI, which evaluates and tracks hunger at the international, local, and national levels. 

India is ranked behind its neighbours Nepal (81), Pakistan (99), Sri Lanka (64), and Bangladesh (121) among the 121 nations on the GHI (84).

The GHI, which ranks countries based on severity,’ has given India a score of 29.1, putting it in the ‘serious’ category of hunger.

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Yemen is ranked 121st on the list, with 17 top-ranking nations in total — the differences in severity scoring are minimal. China and Kuwait are the top Asian countries on the list, which are influenced by European nations such as Croatia, Estonia, and Montenegro.

The GHI score is based on four indicators: malnutrition, child wasting (the proportion of children under the age of five with low weight for their height, indicating acute undernourishment); child stalling (children under the age of five with a low height for their age, indicating chronic undernutrition); and infant mortality rates (the mortality rate of children under the age of five).

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A score of less than 9.9 is considered ‘low,’ 10-19.9 is’moderate,’ 20-34.9 is serious,’ 35-49.9 is ‘alarming,’ and more than 50 is ‘extremely alarming.’

Over the years, India’s GHI score has been declining. It had a ‘alarming’ score of 38.8 in 2000, which had dropped to 28.2 by 2014. Since then, the country’s scores have begun to rise.

While India has always recorded lower values for the four indicators, malnutrition and the predominance of wasting in children began to rise in 2014. The population proportion of undernourishment increased from 14.8 in 2014 to 16.3 in 2022, while the incidence of wasting in children under five years increased from 15.1 in 2014 to 19.3 in 2022.