Count the progress, and question the yardstick
Opinion: this editorial reflects the editor's view.
India has been ranked 100th among 122 countries in the 2026 Global Hunger Index, with a score of 24.1. The headlines will call it a failure. The fuller picture is more balanced. India's score has fallen from 37 in 2006 to 24.1, child stunting has dropped from 50 per cent in 2000 to 29.3 per cent, and the country moved up two places from last year.
The government has long argued that the index is a poor yardstick: three of its four indicators concern children under five, the undernourishment figure rests on a small opinion survey, and the index does not capture food programmes. Those programmes are real. The National Food Security Act covers about 80 crore people, supported by free grain under PMGKAY, Poshan Abhiyaan, mid-day meals and anganwadi services.
None of this is a reason for complacency. Child wasting at 19 per cent is a stubborn problem that needs focus on nutrition, sanitation and early childhood care. But a country should measure itself by its own data and delivery, and not hand its self-image to an index whose method it has repeatedly questioned. The goal is for fewer children to go hungry, not a better rank.
The other side
The report's authors note that India's improvement has slowed, that it has been in the 'serious' category since 2012, and that its child wasting rate is the highest in South Asia. India also trails Bangladesh and Nepal. Critics of the government say that rejecting the method is a way of avoiding the numbers, and urge it to publish better and more frequent nutrition data.
