Answer: India slipped to 101st rank out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021, from its earlier position of 94th out of 107 countries in 2020. India is trailing behind Pakistan (92), Bangladesh (76) and Nepal (76). Further, according to FAO estimates in “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2020 report, 189.2 million people are undernourished in India. Concerns raised by the recent reports on the hunger situation in India are:

• Wasting (low weight for height) among children increased from 17.1% between 1998 and 2002 to 17.3% between 2016 and 2020.
• Conflict, climate change, and COVID-19 (3Cs) threaten to wipe out any progress that has been made against hunger in recent years.
• Despite showing improvement in indicators such as the under-5 mortality rate, there is still a prevalence of stunting among children and a prevalence of undernourishment owing to inadequate food intake.
• According to a World Bank report, malnutrition in India is two to seven times higher than in other BRICS member countries.

Some policy interventions undertaken to curb the menace of hunger and starvation include:

• POSHAN Abhiyaan, launched in 2018, is a multi-ministerial convergence mission with the vision to ensure the attainment of a malnutrition-free India by 2022 in a phased manner through a life cycle approach by adopting a synergized and result-oriented approach.
• Mid-day meals in primary and upper primary schools along with anganwadis have played an important role in monitoring and supplementing efforts to reduce malnutrition through free food for children (and pregnant as well as lactating women).
• The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, is one of the flagship programs of the government to improve the nutritional and health status of children in the age group of 0-6 years.

Reasons for the persistence of hunger in India despite various measures are:

• Due to policy inadequacy:
  • Weak implementation of schemes: It is a direct result of various factors such as a top-down approach, poor implementation processes, lack of effective monitoring, siloed approaches, shortage of qualified human resources, etc.
  • Social structure: Several schemes do not reach large sections of the population, especially marginalized tribes, and Dalits, who find themselves ostracized by the distribution system.
• Other reasons:
  • Food wastage: India wastes about 7% of its total annual food production and almost 30% of its fruits and vegetables because of inadequate warehousing facilities and cold storage.
  • Low status of women: Indian women’s nutrition, feeding and caring practices for young children are inadequate. This is due to their status in society, the practice of early marriage, low weight during pregnancy, and their lower level of education.
  • Shifts in diet and lifestyle patterns: More consumption of food and drinks high in fat, sugar, and salt, as they are cheaper and more readily available.

To eradicate hunger, the government needs to re-activate and scale up services for the early detection and treatment of child wasting, organize regular orientation programs, use information technology to improve program monitoring, design more efficient integrated schemes for food production, processing, and preservation, and bring about behavioral changes among the population.