Does anyone have a good analysis on this? I am not sure if this "hunger" is same as the hunger that we normally think of (people dying as they are not getting food).
The wiki page for this index is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_State_Hunger_Index
It says that the index is based on Global Hunger Index (GWI).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hunger_Index
Calculation of the GHI
GHI: (PUN + CUW + CM) / 3
PUN = proportion of the population that is undernourished (in %)
CUW = prevalence of underweight children under five (in %)
CM = proportion of children dying before the age of five (in %)
The index ranks countries on a 100 point scale, with 0 being the best score ("no hunger") and 100 being the worst, though neither of these extremes is achieved in practice. Values less than 4.9 reflect "low hunger", values between 5 and 9.9 reflect "moderate hunger", values between 10 and 19.9 indicate a "serious", values between 20 and 29.9 are "alarming", and values exceeding 30 are "extremely alarming" hunger problem.
Now, question is what determines whether a child is undernourised/underweight? If Indian children are benchmarked against global averages, many would anyways come out as undernourished and underweight, just because of different diets. Just like even healthy Indians would come out as under-height if benchmarked against global benchmarks. Coming to child mortality, isn't it a big assumption that a child dying before 5 would be dying of hunger? What about lack of proper medical attention when a child falls sick? I can think of anecdotal examples of children dying after getting fever/cholera/jaundice/etc. as he was not taken to a doc on time or because the doc/quack was incompetent. This is from my surroundings where no one was "hungry" as we generally imagine poor people to be.
Now read this in first link:
ISHI 2008 scores for Indian states range from 13,6 (“serious”) for Punjab to 30,9 (“extremely alarming”) for Madhya Pradesh, indicating substantial variability among states in India. Punjab is ranked 34th when compared to the GHI 2008 worldwide country ranking, while Madhya Pradesh is ranked 82nd. In this state more people suffer from hunger than in Ethiopia or Sudan. 60 percent of the children are undernourished.
So do we really think that even a result of 30.9 is alarming, if Indian children are being benchmarked against global averages? Even a state like Punjab, where availability/access to food is not a big issue, falls in serious category. I don't think 13.6% of children are dying of hunger in Punjab.
Also note the 60% of undernourished children in MP, that has been compared with Ethiopia to generate shock value. Is it not too high a number to be plausible as real hunger? And it also gives an indication of what is driving these numbers. MP's score is 30% overall; of which 20% is contributed by undernourishment (60%/3). Between undernourishment and underweight, I'd consider underweight to be a better indicator (not good enough, but relatively better). As an underweight child is much more likely to be "hungry" than an undernourished child. I can easily imagine how a supposedly well-fed and over-weight Indian child (eating bread, butter, samosas and what not) would still be under-nourished when you look at global averages of proteins and vitamins.
Another thought- hopefully the people calculating didn't double count the undernourished and underweight. It is an elementary thing to take care of, but working in a bank, I am no more surprised by elementary errors.
Finally, just to be clear- I am not rubbishing this Index. Indeed, it may quite usefully point that Indian children (rich and poor alike) are undernourished and the remedy would be a balanced diet. But what happens usually is that these reports are used for sensational headlines (Indians hungrier than sub-Saharan Africa) and then forgotten. Or worse, they lead to wrong policy actions. One can easily imagine a controversy based on such a report followed by banning of exports on wheat/rice, etc; which may already be rotting in FCI's godowns.
And also, just to be clear, I am not saying there is no one dying of hunger in India. There may probably be quite a few needing urgent attention, just don't think this report identifies them correctly.
Would love to see a good analysis of this methodology and report somewhere.
