Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Wednesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over India ranking 102 in the Global Hunger Index, saying the PM should concentrate less on politics and more on the children in the country.
India has slipped to 102nd position in the Global Hunger Index 2019 of 117 countries, slipping from its 2018 position of 95 and behind its neighbours Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
"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," Sibal tweeted.
"93% of children (6 to 23) months don't get minimum acceptable diet," he said.
India is behind its neighbours Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and is placed only 15 places above the country with the most severe hunger problem, which is Central Africa.
With a score of 30.3, India suffers from the level of hunger that is considered “serious,” the report said.
Pakistan is at 94, Bangladesh at 88 and Nepal at 73 in this year’s GHI report.
“Because of its large population, India’s GHI indicator values have an outsized impact on the indicator values for the region. India’s child wasting rate is extremely high at 20.8 percent—the highest wasting rate of any country in this report for which data or estimates were available,” the report said.
Seventeen countries, including Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait, shared the top rank with GHI scores of less than five, the website of the Global Hunger Index that tracks hunger and malnutrition said on Wednesday.
(With inputs from agencies)
