No Great Escape

Context: India’s poor progress on nutritional indices must turn national focus on reducing hunger, wasting and stunting among children. 

Global Hunger Index (GHI)

• Parameters Used: 

1. Wasting and stunting (under five), 
2. Share of the population with insufficient caloric intake,
3. Child mortality.

• Worst among BRICS countries (27.2), and inferior to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. 
• Low rank worldwide: India ranks 94 among 107 countries. 

India’s Nutritional Inaccessibility

• Inadequate delivery of nutrition: especially to women and children; Three out of four rural Indians cannot afford a balanced, nutritious diet. - International Food Policy Research Institute:
• Insufficient diet diversity: in Public Distribution System (PDS) and false equation of energy calories with a diverse diet.
• Under-five stunting due to chronic undernourishment stood at 38%, and wasting, at 21% due to lack of nutrition. -  National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
• Food inflation exaggerated by pandemic: putting pressure on depleted incomes or meagre pensions and savings.
• Decreased accessibility of PDS: to disabled and the elderly due to necessary requirement of biometric verification to get supplies. 

Way Forward: Strengthen the PDS 

• Stronger supplemental nutrition under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) with a focus on women and child health.
• Pursuit of fraud within PDS with stringent measures. 

Conclusion: GHI measure must be used as a reminder that right to food would be meaningless without nutritional security.