"Pimp stands for Positive Intellectual Motivated Person. It has nothing to do with selling sex for money": ‘Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of Global Hunger Report. Index is an erroneous measure of hunger & suffers methodological issues’: India

The Indian government on October 15 rubbished the Global Hunger Report 2022 saying it has an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. 

“Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index,” read a statement released by the Indian government after Global Hunger Report 2022 placed India on 107, below neighbouring countries Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

“The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. Three out of the four indicators used for the calculation of the index are related to the health of Children and cannot be representative of the entire population. The fourth and most important indicator estimate of the Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3000,” the statement further added.

The statement also said that the Global Hunger Index Report is not only disconnected from reality but has also deliberately ignored efforts undertaken by the Government to ensure food Security for the population, especially during the Covid Pandemic.

“Taking a one-dimensional view, the report lowers India’s rank based on the estimate of the Proportion of the Undernourished (PoU) population for India at 16.3%. The FAO estimate is based on the “Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)” Survey Module conducted through Gallop World Poll, which is an “opinion poll” based on “8 questions” with a sample size of ‘3000 respondents’,” the statement said. 

The government said the data used to arrive at the rating drawn from a narrow sample for a country of India’s size and through dubious methods is not only wrong & unethical, but it also reeks of obvious bias. It also accused the Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, the publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, of not having done their due diligence before releasing the report.

The central government highlighted the prejudice and erroneous method used by the agency, pointing out how irrelevant, and questions not searching for factual responses were used in the survey to arrive at the Hunger Index. 

“The per capita dietary energy supply in India, as estimated by FAO from the Food Balance Sheets, has been increasing year-on-year owing to enhanced production of major agricultural commodities in the country over the years and there is absolutely no reason why the country’s undernourishment levels should increase,” the statement said. 

Besides, the centre also listed down measures it had undertaken to ensure food security for its close to 1.4 billion population. 

“Government is running the largest food security programme in the world. In the wake of economic disruptions caused by the unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, the Government in March 2020 announced the distribution of additional free-of-cost foodgrains (Rice/Wheat) to about 80 Crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries at the scale of 5 Kg per person per month under the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY), over and above the regular monthly NFSA foodgrains i.e., regular entitlements of their ration cards,” the centre enlisted while rejecting the Global Hunger Index Report.

It further highlighted the efforts the government took to help ensure food security during COVID-19. “So far, under the PM-GKAY scheme, the Government allocated a total of almost 1121 Lakh MT foodgrains to the States/UTs equivalent to about Rs. 3.91 Lakh Crore in food subsidy. The scheme has been extended till December 2022. The distribution has been done through State Governments, who on their own further supplemented the efforts of Central Government by providing pulses, edible oils and condiments etc to the beneficiaries,” the statement said.

Under Anganwadi Services, supplementary nutrition was provided to approximately 7.71 crore children up to the age of 6 years and to 1.78 crore pregnant women and lactating mothers. 5.3 Million Metric Tonnes of Foodgrains (comprising 2.5 Million Metric Tonnes of Wheat, 1.1 Million Metric Tonnes of Rice, 1.6 Million Metric Tonnes of Fortified Rice and 12,037 Metric Tonnes of Jowar and Bajra) were supplied.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Matri Vandana Yojna, more than 1.5 Crore registered women were provided Rs 5000/- on the birth of their first child for wage support and nutritious food during pregnancy and post-delivery period.

“The three other indicators apart from PoU, included in Global Hunger Index relate primarily to children viz. Stunting, Wasting and Under 5 mortality. These indicators are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like drinking water, 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. Calculating hunger based on main indicators relating to health indicators of children is neither scientific nor rational,” the statement concluded.

What is the Global Hunger Index?

The Global Hunger India (GHI), jointly published by Concern Worldwide, an aid and humanitarian agency, and Welthungerhilfe, a German non-profit, is a peer-reviewed annual report that aims to “comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and country levels”. It is published keeping in mind United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) to achieve “Zero Hunger” by 2030.

The report endeavours to “raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger”.

A country with a low score on the index gets a higher ranking, implying a better performance.

How is hunger calculated?

While our understanding of hunger is the lack of access to food, mathematically it is calculated by mapping calorie intake. It tracks the performance of countries using four indicators undernourishment (the measure of the proportion of the population facing chronic deficiency of dietary energy intake), child stunting (low height for age), child wasting (low weight for height) and child mortality (death of a child under the age of five), according to a report in The Hindu.

The data of each country are standardised on a 100-point scale. The final score is calculated after giving 33.33 per cent weight each to components 1 and 4, and giving 16.66 per cent weight each to components 2 and 3.

Countries scoring less than or equal to 9.9 are ranked “low”, while those scoring between 20 and 34.9 are placed in the “serious” category. Nations with a score above 50 are in the “extremely alarming” category.

What are rival political parties saying?

The Congress slammed the BJP government, saying it is “living in denial” and is suppressing facts. Senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who is likely to become party president, said that the country has slipped in the hunger index yet again, now ranking 107, lagging behind every South Asian country except Afghanistan.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asked when the RSS-BJP will work to “weaken” India by misleading the people from reality. “India ranks 107th out of 121 countries on hunger and malnutrition! Now the prime minister and his ministers will say, ‘Hunger is not increasing in India, rather people are not feeling hungry in other countries”, he said in a tweet in Hindi.

References:

opindia.com