Global Hunger Index: India at 63rd position, still behind China, Pak

New Delhi: While the position of India on the Global Hunger Index, has gone up, it is still behind China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Surely, poor people in India do need the " Jupiter escape velocity" to get rid of hunger, if one were to believe Rahul Gandhi. India lags behind neighboring countries with its position on the GHI at 63rd compared to 67th position which was last year. The hunger rate of India is at alarming levels according to the report. More than 40 percent of children underweight are under five years of age in India says the report. The GHI report has jointly been prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and NGOs Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide. On the GHI, China scored 6th position with moderate level of hunger, while Sri Lanka was at 43, Pakistan at 57 and Bangladesh at 58, having ‘serious' levels of hunger. The report observed that South Asia has the maximum number of hungry people in the world followed by Sahara region, even as the global hunger is decreasing. “Social inequality and the low nutritional, educational, and social status of women are major causes of child under-nutrition in this (South Asian) region that have impeded improvements in the GHI score,” it said. As far as global hunger levels are concerned, the report said that the world score on GHI has fallen by 34 per cent this year from the 1990 level, but hunger levels still remains “serious” with 19 countries suffering from either alarming or extremely alarming levels of hunger. The Index identifies hunger levels across 120 developing countries and its scores are based on three equally weighted indicators: proportion of people undernourished, proportion of children under five underweight, and mortality rate of children under five.