New Delhi (NVI): As India raises a toast to its little ones in a series of events to mark World Children’s Day today, a paradox continues to be in play in an alarming data that only 9.6% of children below 23 months of age get adequate nutrition in the country, if the Global Hunger Index 2019 report is to go by.
The Global Hunger Index 2019, which surprisingly did not make much noise in the country, ranks India 102nd among 117 nations. And this index consists of four components, of which three are related to child hunger. These are undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and child mortality.
Being published by the International Food Policy Research Institute for the last 20 years, another worrying aspect of this latest Index is that it puts India behind countries like Pakistan (94), Bangladesh (88) and Sri Lanka (66).
Even India’s own Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS), which is based on a sample of more than 1 lakh children across 30 states, largely corroborates the Index findings.
The CNNS survey has found that the relatively affluent states fare poorly on child hunger and nutrition. Most healthy children live in North-Eastern States and Kerala, while Gujarat turns out to be the unhealthiest, as per the data.
However, in a rebuttal of sorts, the Niti Aayog, has somewhat questioned the methodology of Global Hunger Index, saying that it has underestimated India’s improvement in stunting and child mortality. As per the Niti Aayog stunting has gone down from 38.4 to 34.7%, wasting from 21 to 17.3%, and underweight from 35.7 to 33.4%.
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