World

With 194m undernourished, India tops world hunger list

The number of undernourished people has fallen from one billion to 795 million

Web Desk May 29, 2015

PHOTO: NPR

India has the highest estimated number of undernourished people in any single country, according to a report published by the United Nations.

An estimated 194.6 million, or about one in every four people in the world are undernourished in India, according to ‘State of Food Security in the World 2015,’ report issued by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation.

Worldwide, the number of undernourished people has fallen by 216 million between the years 1990 and 1992, and in 2015, the number went from one billion to 795 million. However, India’s contribution to this fall has been very minimal, with its numbers decreasing by just 15.5 million.

Read: Separate budget to tackle malnutrition

During this, India has overtaken China, which cut its numbers from 289 million in 1990-1992 to 133.8 million in the latest estimates. The fall in China’s population has also ensured that the South-east Asian region contributed the most to this decline.

India missed both the millennium development goal as well as the goal laid out at the World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996, when governments of countries from around the world committed to halving the absolute number of undernourished people by 2015.

Of the 172 countries that were being monitored, 29 including Nepal met the WFS goal.

Although India and China contributed to the overall hunger in the developing regions, the highest burden of hunger was found to be in Southern Asia.

Read: A home without food: Afghan refugees return to malnourished country

The estimates for the years 2014 till 2016 proposed that about 281 million people were undernourished in the region, marking only a slight reduction of 10 million from the number in 1990 till 1992 of 291 million.

The slow reduction in India, in particular, had a significant influence on results for the region.

The most noteworthy exceptions in the region were Bangladesh and Nepal. Bangladesh has reached the MDG target with the National Food Policy framework adopted in the mid-2000s being given the credit for this achievement. Nepal achieved both MDG as well as WFS target and is inching towards bringing it down to less than 5% of the population.

In India, the undernourished constitute just over 15% of the population.

India’s lack of progress has remained a mystery. Explanations offered for the inconsistency between food consumption and income levels in India ranged from increasing inequalities, to poor data and further to the challenges of capturing the energy requirements of the population.

Calorie consumption being lower than what per capita incomes and poverty rates would suggest remained inexplicable, the report noted.

Undernourished in Pakistan

Pakistan is home to about 41.4 million undernourished people, according to the State of Food Security in the World 2015 report, with the change so far accounting for 44.2 per cent.

This article originally appeared in The Times of India.

COMMENTS (9)

the Skunk | 9 years ago | Reply With 41.4 million undernourished people representing 44.2 percent of the population is very, very disturbing indeed! This can be attributed to very, very, bad governance. Salams

wb | 9 years ago | Reply @Hmm: I absolutely agree with you. But can you show me one maikalal in India who has the honesty and courage to implement such a policy? Wherever there are Muslims and no oil, these massive problems are a part of it. Muslims are the reason why India is still poor.

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darvesh | 9 years ago | Reply Observation is stronger than theory.In India you see living skeleton in every street in Pakistan you don't see any.

Asok | 9 years ago | Reply As an Indian, yes, I would like the numbers to be lower, but at least we are moving the right direction. We actually reduced the number of malnourished people in spite of growing population. Pakistanis, before criticizing India or mouthing platitudes about military spending, please note that the number of malnourished actually increased in Pakistan, and as a percentage of population, it is higher in Pakistan.

Patriot | 9 years ago | Reply @pity - If India spent less on military, all of India will be Malnourished. If there are no Security, no investments and no jobs. Look Pakistan and Afghanistan for example

Hmm | 9 years ago | Reply India can learn from china.Impose 2 children law, at least. Those who produce more than 2 , put them behind bars for ever . This is the solution . Because there are community, people who produce in masses and leave them on street to beg and do crimes .

Bewildered | 9 years ago | Reply Here is the mirror showing the shameful performance of our successive governments, both civil and military, despite the fact that every other country in world reduced their number of hungry people, Pakistan registered a steady increase (year 1990–92: 28.7 million, year 2000–02: 34.4 million, year 2005–07: 38.1 million, year 2010–12: 38.3 million, year 2014–16: 41.4 million). The reason is simple. The blood sucking cursed creatures (politicians and bureaucrats) imposed on us are the worst in the whole world, sucking the very last drops of blood from the hapless masses of this very resourceful country and depositing it in the banks of Europe and America for their many many future generation to feed upon.

Pity | 9 years ago | Reply If only India can spend less on arms and more on eradicating poverty.....

Woz Ahmed | 9 years ago | Reply Disturbing. Malnutrition rates across our continent are , Pakistan 22%, India 15% and China 9%. All three of us have growing defence budgets, we need to tackle this issue and education, first, everything else is secondary !

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