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Indian Government had been criticizing the report presented by the 'Welthungerhilfe' and 'Concern Worldwide' titled Global Hunger Index.

About GHI

• As per Global Hunger lndex 2021 report prepared by 'Welthungerhilfe' and 'Concern Worldwide', India’s score is 27.5 and it has ranked 101 among 116 countries.
• Global Hunger Index is based on four indicators - Undernourishment, Child Stunting, Child Wasting and Child Mortality.
• Global Hunger Index (GHI) does not reflect India’s true picture as it is a flawed measure of 'Hunger'. It should not be taken at face value as it is neither appropriate nor representative of hunger prevalent in a 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.
• Also, there is hardly any evidence that the fourth indicator, namely, child mortality is an outcome of hunger.
• Data used in the GHI report are sourced from international agencies which are not updated as per the latest data available in the country.

Government Stance

• Government conducts National Family Health Survey (NFHS) at regular intervals. As per recently released NFHS report, Child Stunting in the country has decreased from 38.4% (NFHS-4, 2015-16) to 35.5% (NFHS-5, 2019-21) and Child Wasting has decreased from 21.0% (NFHS-4, 2015-16) to 19.3% (NFHS-5, 2019-21).
• Further, percentage of underweight children has gone down from 35.8% (NFHS-4, 2015-16) to 32.1% (NFHS-5, 2019-21).

Schemes

• The Government is implementing several schemes and programs under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services Scheme as direct targeted interventions to address the problem of malnutrition in the country. 
• In order to achieve zero hunger target, Government has implemented National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013, which provides for coverage of upto 75% of the rural population and upto 50% of the urban population for receiving highly subsidized foodgrains under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), which as per census 2011 comes to a maximum of 81.35 crore.