Global Hunger Index: India, Afghanistan hunger levels worst among South Asian nations

India fared worse than its neighbours, even as the Centre slammed the 'erroneous' report

Representative image. Credit: iStock Photo

India ranked 107 out of 121 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2022, much behind other South Asia neighbours, with the child wasting rate of 19.3 per cent, the highest in the world.

Meanwhile, the Centre slammed the report, calling it an effort to taint the country's image. The government said the index suffers from serious methodological issues and is an "erroneous measure" of hunger.

With a score of 29.1, the level of hunger in India has been labelled "serious". Among South Asian countries, Afghanistan with a rank of 109 is the only country behind India.

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Neighbouring countries - Pakistan (99), Bangladesh (84), Nepal (81) and Sri Lanka (64) have all fared better than India.

Here we take a look at how India and other South Asia countries fared in the last 10 years on the hunger scores (the higher the score, the worse off the country's hunger level is):

Analysing the data from the five countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan. Sri Lanka and Nepal), we see that India and Afghanistan have the worst hunger levels among the others (data for Afghanistan is not available between 2012 to 2014). Meanwhile, Sri Lanka and Nepal have had the lowest levels of hunger among the six countries.