In the Rajya Sabha, Kerala MP P Santhosh Kumar asked the Ministry of Women & Child Development whether the government was planning to intervene to improve the status of child nutrition in the country considering India’s continuous decline on the Global Hunger Index (GHI).
Smriti Irani claimed that GHI does not reflect India’s true picture as it is a flawed measure of ‘Hunger’. The Minister said that the Index should not be taken at face value, as it is neither appropriate nor representative of the hunger prevalent in the country.
“Out of its four indicators, only one indicator, i.e., undernourishment, is directly related to hunger. The two indicators, namely, Stunting and Wasting are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI,” the answer read.
Source: Barandbench
