Union Minister Smriti Irani while addressing a meeting at a FICCI event talking the “Future Role of Women in India,” made a significant statement, stressing that certain indices, like the Global Hunger Index, are deliberately skewed and do not truly reflect India’s progress.
A video of her speech has been spreading on social media, drawing attention to her comments about these benchmarks. Irani said, “How do they build that index? 3000 people from a country of 140 crore get a phone call from Gallup and they are asked, ‘Are you hungry’?”
It is to be further mentioned that in the newly released Global Hunger Index-2023, India found itself ranked 111th out of 125 countries.
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“Now trust me, I have left my house in Delhi in the morning at 4. I caught a flight at 5 to go to Kochi. I did a meeting there, and got a flight at 5 o’clock to come to this event. By the time I get to anything called food, it will be 10 o’clock. If you have called me anytime in the day today and asked are you hungry, I’ll say ‘Oh yes, I am’.”
However, the Indian government quickly rejected this ranking as incorrect and possibly evil in purpose.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Supriya Shrinate hit out at Irani over her statements. She slammed, “I don’t know what’s more shameful – your level of stupidity or your insensitivity at show here?”
Shrinate told, “Madam Minister, a country’s Global Hunger Index is very highly based on 4 indicators- Undernourishment, Child Stunting, Child Wasting, and Child Mortality.”
The index, released on Thursday, also drew attention to India’s highest child wasting rate globally, standing at a worrying 18.7%, indicative of serious undernutrition.
The Global Hunger Index-2023 gave India a score of 28.7, suggesting a high amount of hunger according to the related study. Interestingly, India’s nearby countries, including Pakistan (102nd), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th), and Sri Lanka (60th), beat India in this particular measure.
According to the government report, the percentage of child wasting, as seen on its Poshan tracker, has been constantly below 7.2% month-on-month, as compared to 18.7% in the Global Hunger Index 2023.
It said the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 study provided by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization puts PoU for India at 16.6%. “The FAO estimate is based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) study performed through Gallop World Poll which is an opinion poll based on 8 questions with a sample size of 3,000 respondents.”
