Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders attacked the Centre after India ranked 102 on hunger Index.
Highlights
- "This ranking reveals a colossal failure in policy": Rahul Gandhi
- India ranked 102 out of 117 nations this year, it ranked 103 last year
- The Global Hunger Index is a peer-reviewed annual report
Congress's Rahul Gandhi held up the Global hunger Index figures today as proof of a "colossal failure" of the Narendra Modi government. In the Global Hunger Index report released on Wednesday, India ranked 102nd in the database of 117 nations and trailed Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
"India's #GlobalHungerIndex ranking, falling steadily since 2014, has now crashed to 102/117. This ranking reveals a colossal failure in Govt policy and blows the lid off the PM's hollow "sabka vikas" claim, parroted by Modia," Mr Gandhi posted on Twitter.
Last year, India ranked 103 -- behind Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh - in the database of 119 nations. In this year's index, Pakistan is at 94, Bangladesh 88 and Nepal 73.
The Global Hunger Index is a peer-reviewed annual report, published jointly by Ireland's Concern Worldwide and Germany's Welthungerhilfe. It scores countries on a 100-point "severity scale", where zero is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.
"With a score of 30.3, India suffers from a level of hunger that is serious," this year's report read.
"India's child wasting rate is extremely high at 20.8 per cent - the highest wasting rate of any country in this report for which data or estimates were available," the report added.
Child wasting - meaning the share of children under five years who have a low weight for their age - is one of the four key parameters on which the countries are graded.
The others are "under nourishment", "child stunting" -- or the share of children under five years who have a low height for their age -- and mortality rate of children younger than five years.
Former Union minister and senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal led the party's attack on the government this morning.
"Modi ji: Concentrate less on politics more on our children. They are our future. India slips on Global Hunger Index (GHI). 2010: 95th rank. 2019: 102nd rank," his tweet read.
"2019 Global Hunger Index is out. India further slips down in rank to 102. The slide started with PM Modi's ascension. In 2014 India was ranked 55. In 2017 it slipped to 100 and in now to the levels of Niger and Sierra Leone. The majority of worlds hungry now resides in India," Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac tweeted.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister, the Congress's Siddaramaiah also hit out at the Cenral government.
"According to 2019 Global Hunger Index, India has slipped to 102 out of 117 countries. The report says that India has 'Serious' hunger levels & yet many believe 'Acche Din Aayega'. The question is when? Is it when all, except the Cronies, die of hunger?" his tweet read.