India

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a peer-reviewed report, published on an annual basis by Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide. In 2024, the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) at Ruhr-University Bochum has joined the cooperation as academic partner who will calculate and develop the Index going forward. The GHI is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at global, regional, and national levels, reflecting multiple dimensions of hunger over time. The report aims to raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger, provide a way to compare levels of hunger between countries and regions, and call attention to those areas of the world where hunger levels are highest and where the need for additional efforts to eliminate hunger is greatest.

Each country’s GHI score is calculated based on a formula that combines four indicators that together capture the multidimensional nature of hunger:

• Undernourishment: the share of the population whose caloric intake is insufficient;
• Child stunting: the share of children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition;
• Child wasting: the share of children under the age of five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition; and
• Child mortality: the share of children who die before their fifth birthday, reflecting in part the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments.

For more information visit the GHI methodology webpage.

India’s 2024 GHI score is 27.3, considered serious according to the GHI Severity of Hunger Scale. This is a slight improvement from its 2016 GHI score of 29.3, also considered serious, and shows considerable improvement relative to its 2000 and 2008 GHI scores of 38.4 and 35.2, respectively, both considered alarming. India is ranked 105th out of 127 countries included in the ranking in the 2024 GHI report. India's child wasting rate, at 18.7 percent, is the highest child wasting rate in the report; its child stunting rate is 35.5 percent; its prevalence of undernourishment is 13.7 percent; and its under-five mortality rate is 2.9 percent.

India has significantly improved its child mortality rate since 2000. However, India has the highest child wasting rate and the 14th-highest child stunting rate in the report. The latter has been reduced notably since 2000, but both measures of child undernutrition remain very high in terms of their public health significance. While undernourishment has improved since 2000, the country has seen a slight increase in prevalence of undernourishment in recent years.

The 2024 GHI report provides comparisons between countries for 2000, 2008, 2016, and 2024 GHI scores and indicator values. It is not valid, however, to compare the data and ranking published in the 2024 GHI report with the data and ranking published in the 2023 GHI report, or any other past reports. This is because each year, the data are revised, the set of countries included in the ranking changes, and the methodology may also be revised (see Appendix A of the 2024 GHI or the explanation of the methodology on our website). Consequently, given the nature of the data underlying the calculation of GHI scores, the 2000, 2008, 2016, and 2024 GHI scores and indicator values published in the 2024 GHI report are the only historical data that can currently be used for valid comparisons over time.

The following values for the GHI component indicators were used to calculate India’s 2024 GHI score: The prevalence of undernourishment value is 13.7 percent, as reported in the 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report. The child mortality value is 2.9 percent, as reported in the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation’s (UN IGME) latest report, published in March 2024. The child stunting value is 35.5 percent, and the child wasting value is 18.7 percent; these are the values from India’s National Family Health Survey (2019–2021) (NFHS-5) as reported in the Joint Malnutrition Estimates Joint Data Set Including Survey Estimates (2024 edition) (JME).

In the compilation of the stunting and wasting values, we prioritize and use survey estimates that have been vetted for inclusion in the Joint Malnutrition Estimates and/or the WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition, wherever possible. Although the Joint Malnutrition Estimates (JME) have also included model-based estimates for child stunting in recent years, we have carefully weighed the option of using these estimates and have opted to prioritize survey estimates wherever possible. Given that the model-based estimates from the JME are still relatively new, we are continuing to monitor the development of these estimates and the potential for the introduction of child wasting estimates and may decide to prioritize use of these tools in the future.

The GHI uses the same data sources for all countries to calculate the respective country scores. This ensures that all the rates used have been produced using comparable methodologies. Introducing exceptions to this process for any country or countries would compromise the comparability of the results and the ranking.

In the compilation of the stunting and wasting values, we prioritize and use survey estimates that have been vetted for inclusion in the Joint Malnutrition Estimates and/or the WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition, wherever possible. The GHI uses the same data sources for all countries to calculate the respective country scores. This ensures that all the rates used have been produced using comparable methodologies. Introducing exceptions to this process for any country or countries would compromise the comparability of the results and the ranking. We would be glad to consider the inclusion of the Poshan tracker data for future editions of the GHI once they have been included in the UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Malnutrition Estimates Joint Data Set Including Survey Estimates and/or the WHO Global Database on Child Nutrition.

The ranking cannot be validly compared between different editions of the report (see #4). The lower GHI score can be attributed to a slightly lower child mortality rate as well as a prevalence of undernourishment value that is lower owing to new data available (see #8).

Indicator values cannot be validly compared between various editions of the GHI owing to revisions to the data. In the case of prevalence of undernourishment, the GHI uses data from the 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published by FAO. As in every edition of this report, rather than just adding a new data point to the existing series, the entire series of prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) estimates from 2000 has been revised to reflect revised or additional data and information FAO has received since last year’s publication. In some cases, the new information pertains to past years, a reason why the entire series must be revised, and readers are urged to avoid comparing figures across different editions of the report. In this edition, the major revision entailed reflecting revised estimates of the degree of inequality in food access within national populations, as captured by the coefficient of variation due to income (CV|y) parameter that enters into the formula to compute the PoU. Since the last edition of this report, FAO’s Statistics Division has gained access to the full microdata sets of several countries, including India (2011-12 and 2022-23). The newly estimated CV|y parameters replaced previous values for those years, which may have been based on interpolation or on modelling. This often also requires a revision of the same parameter in the same country for the preceding and subsequent years, in order to reconcile the old and the new information through consistent interpolations and extrapolations (see Annex 1B of the SOFI report).

In general, higher GDP per capita tends to be associated with lower levels of hunger, but this relationship is not always direct or guaranteed. GDP growth alone does not automatically translate into improved food and nutrition security in the whole population. Policies need to emphasize pro-poor development and address social and economic inequalities. India’s GDP growth has also experienced a considerable dip in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. India’s per capita dietary energy supply, as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has gone up somewhat in recent years. However, this increase has been offset by increases in the incidence of caloric losses at the retail distribution level, increased dietary energy requirements of the population, and an increased coefficient of variation (a measure of the inequality of caloric intake across a given population). As a result, India’s prevalence of undernourishment has increased somewhat between 2017–2019 and 2020–2022 with a slight improvement since.

To compare India with its neighboring countries individually, please refer to Appendix B, C, and D in the full report or the respective country pages on the GHI website to see how the GHI scores and indicator values (prevalence of undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality) of these countries compare with those of India.

Over the long term, GHI scores can reflect underlying conditions such as inequality, poverty, governance, and demographic conditions, as well as shocks and crises such as economic downturns, climate extremes and conflict. The effects of crises on the indicators used in the calculation of GHI scores can vary from country to country. Depending on the preexisting vulnerability of the population and a country’s social protection measures, an economic crisis may or may not manifest as increases in the prevalence of undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and/or child mortality, affecting the extent to which the crisis results in changes in GHI scores. The effects of crises on the indicators used in the calculation of GHI scores can vary from country to country and often emerge with a considerable time lag.

Each country faces a unique set of challenges that contributes to hunger and undernutrition. Levels of hunger and undernutrition also vary substantially within countries, including in India, as shown for example by India’s National Family Health Survey (2019–2021) (NFHS-5).

A substantial body of evidence exists that shows what types of programs and strategies can successfully address hunger and undernutrition. Along with a careful diagnosis of the constraints to food and nutrition security and an evaluation of the context in a particular area, this literature combined with experience on the ground must help guide the creation of programs that will successfully address food and nutrition insecurity in the future. The types of interventions and the findings mentioned here are just a small sample of the evidence base.

India has demonstrated significant political will to transform the food and nutrition landscape. Some examples are the National Food Security Act, Poshan Abhiyan (National Nutrition Mission), PM Garib Kalyan Yojna and National Mission for Natural Farming. However, there is still room for improvement. India would likely see the greatest improvements in its GHI scores and ranking, as well as in the on-the-ground well-being of its children, by addressing its high rates of child wasting and child stunting. Child undernutrition in India goes hand in hand with the poor nutritional status of mothers (IIPS and ICF 2021). The child wasting rate in India is highest at birth and then consistently declines to the age of three, at which point it becomes fairly steady. This pattern suggests an intergenerational pattern of undernutrition where the factors driving India’s high child wasting rate are mothers’ insufficient weight gain during pregnancy and low birth weight among infants. This underscores the need for attention to gender inequalities, maternal health and nutrition, and infant feeding.

Multifaceted approaches involving government and other stakeholders, most importantly communities, tend to bring positive results. There are several nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions that have proven to contribute to reducing hunger and undernutrition and that are recommended by experts, including in India:

• Improved access to social safety nets and cash transfers: In India, this would mean particularly improving access to programs such as the Public Distribution Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
• Investments in mother and child health: Particular attention should be given to the first 1000 days (from conception to two years of age when the brain and body grow significantly and the immune system develops), improved complementary feeding practices between 6-24 months and improved water, sanitation and hygiene practices. Given the importance of the health of adolescent girls for future generations, nutrition education should focus on them, particularly in vulnerable areas. Participatory learning approaches and campaigns through the last mile functionaries at village level such as Anganwadi workers, Krishi Sakhis, Poshan Sakhis and Auxiliary nurse midwifes (ANM) have proven successful.
• Investments in agriculture and a holistic food systems approach, ensuring policy coherence of various government programs, including promoting diversified, nutritious, ecological, and safe food production including nutri-cereals such as millets.
• Nutrition-sensitive planning processes, e.g. integrating nutrition into the Gram Panchayat Development Planning (GPDP) process, awarding Nutri-smart Panchayats, promoting homestead nutrition gardens.
• Interventions should consider the links between food and nutrition, gender, and climate change. For example, in Odisha, research and development on millets has shifted in response to Indigenous women’s needs for production and postharvest support. The government has now started testing millet-related tools and technologies for their gender sensitivity when considering state subsidies. Recognition that millets are cultivated mainly by women farmers has led to a reallocation of R&D budgets to build technologies that can improve yields, incomes, and overall wellbeing (Rao et al. 2022). Women farmers’ groups in the state of Kerala have gained access to government extension services and bank credit through their collectives, not solely to enhance their production but also to help them diversify into climate-resilient, nutrition-rich crops. Incomes have increased, as has diet quality, as these women now grow diverse crops for both consumption and sale (Agarwal 2019). While male farmers are mainly engaged in the production of export-oriented, commercial plantation crops like pepper and rubber, the state here recognizes the contribution of the women’s groups to food production and food security and prioritizes this in its planning processes. The success of women farmers’ groups in Kerala is now being replicated across the country through the National Rural Livelihood Mission. Women’s representation can also make a difference in local governance, enabling demands from local communities to be channelled upward. In 1993, India instituted a 33 percent quota for women in the local government bodies known as Panchayati Raj Institutions. Women elected leaders were found to invest more than men in infrastructure responsive to issues raised by rural women (such as drinking water projects), which reduces women’s work and boosts the nutritional status of rural communities (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004).

Of course, a decrease in India’s GHI score does not guarantee an improvement in its ranking if other countries reduce their GHI scores by equal or greater amounts. For India to improve in the ranking, it would need to improve more than other countries in the report. It is important to remember that the rankings in GHI reports cannot be validly compared from year to year (see #4).

The Global Hunger Index report is peer reviewed by external experts and the methodology has long been established and tested. The GHI incorporates four indicators to reflect the multidimensional nature of hunger. Together, they reflect deficiencies in calories as well as in micronutrients. These indicators are part of the internationally recognized set of indicators designed to measure progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 “Zero Hunger,” upon which the international community—including India—agreed. The prevalence of undernourishment is an indicator for SDG 2.1, on ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all. Child stunting and wasting rates are indicators for SDG 2.2, on ending all forms of malnutrition. Reducing child stunting and wasting by 2025 are also internationally agreed World Health Assembly targets. Reducing preventable deaths of children under five years of age is listed as SDG 3.2.

By combining the proportion of undernourished in the population (1/3 of the GHI score) with the indicators relating to children under age five (2/3 of the GHI score), the GHI captures both the food supply situation of the population as a whole and the effects of inadequate nutrition within a particularly vulnerable subset of the population.

Three out of four indicators used in the calculation of the Global Hunger Index relate primarily to children because children are particularly vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies. A deficiency of nutrients places them at high risk of physical and mental impairment and death. The most critical time for good nutrition is the 1000-day window from the beginning of the mother's pregnancy to a child's second birthday. Child stunting has been shown to be associated with impaired early motor and cognitive development, with potentially life-long consequences for the individual and for society as a whole. Child wasting is the most immediate, visible, and life-threatening form of malnutrition, resulting from the failure to prevent malnutrition among the most vulnerable children. Child mortality reflects that death is the most serious consequence of hunger, and children are the most vulnerable. It also improves the GHI’s ability to reflect deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals. For many children who die from infectious diseases, the indirect cause of death is a weakened immune system due to a lack of dietary energy, vitamins, and minerals. Since the first three indicators—the proportion of undernourished and the prevalence of stunting and wasting in children—do not capture premature death as the most tragic consequence of hunger, the under-five mortality rate is also included.

The prevalence of undernourishment indicator is calculated by the experts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) using several factors. Prevalence of undernourishment takes into account the average per capita availability of food as obtained through carefully constructed food balance sheets. Food balance sheets are based primarily on data officially reported by the member countries, including India.

Prevalence of undernourishment also considers the calorie requirements of the population (based on data on age distribution for males and females, distribution of heights, and other key determinants of dietary energy requirements). Also, prevalence of undernourishment takes into account the distribution of calorie intake in the population as estimated through official consumption surveys conducted by governments. The methodology for estimating prevalence of undernourishment is described in FAO’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report (Annex 1B).

Prevalence of undernourishment values calculated in this way are used to measure progress toward the SDGs. Likewise, the GHI uses prevalence of undernourishment values reported by FAO whether or not governments have provided official consumption survey data.

Children are considered stunted or wasted if their height-for-age or weight-for-height, respectively, deviates substantially from the internationally recognized global WHO Child Growth Standards. Some have argued that India’s rates of child wasting and child stunting are high because Indian children are genetically shorter and thinner than other children in the world.

The WHO Child Growth Standards are based on the WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS), which generated curves for assessing the growth and development of children the world over. The MGRS collected primary growth data and related information from healthy breastfed infants and young children from diverse backgrounds and cultural settings, including India. After data collection (which spanned five years to create a database for children growing in their first five years of life), the data from the different parts of the globe were slightly but not statistically significantly different, meaning there were no significant differences in how children were growing, provided they grew up in an optimal environment. The WHO Child Growth Standards therefore depict normal early childhood growth under optimal environmental conditions and can be used to assess children everywhere, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and type of feeding. There is no doubt that genetic factors influence individual height. A wide variation in height can therefore be observed among healthy, well-nourished children of any given age. The WHO Child Growth Standards consider this by allowing for a range of heights around the age-specific middle values in the growth curves. Children are considered stunted only if their height deviates considerably from the middle value defined for their age (that is, their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards).

Globally, it is estimated that undernutrition is responsible for 45 percent of deaths among children under the age of five (Black et al. 2013). This figure is widely cited, including in UNICEF (2023) and WHO (2022). In India specifically, the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Malnutrition Collaborators found that, “Malnutrition was the predominant risk factor for death in children younger than 5 years of age in every state of India in 2017, accounting for 68.2% of the total under-5 deaths,” (Swaminathan et al. 2019). In other words, malnutrition accounts for over two thirds of child deaths in India, exceeding the global average.

Child mortality is included in the calculation of GHI scores for the following reasons: it reflects that death is the most serious consequence of hunger, and children are the most vulnerable; improves the GHI’s ability to reflect deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals; and complements stunting and wasting, which only partially capture the mortality risk of undernutrition.

Inclusion in the GHI is determined based on prevalence of undernourishment and child mortality data dating back to 2000. Countries with values above the “very low” threshold for one or both of these indicators since 2000 are included in the GHI. Specifically, countries are included if the prevalence of undernourishment was at or above 5.0 percent and/or if the child mortality rate was at or above 1.0 percent for any year since 2000. Data on child stunting and child wasting, the other indicators used in the calculation of GHI scores, are not included in the inclusion criteria because their availability varies widely from country to country, with data especially limited for higher-income countries. Non-independent territories are not included in the GHI, nor are countries with very small populations (under 500,000 inhabitants), owing to limited data availability. Because data for all four indicators in the GHI formula are not available for every country, GHI scores could not be calculated for some. However, where possible, countries with incomplete data are provisionally categorized according to the GHI Severity of Hunger Scale based on existing data and complementary reports (see Table A.3 in the full report). Several of these countries are experiencing unrest or violent conflict, which affects the availability of data as well as the food security and nutrition situation in the country. It is possible that one or more of these countries would have a higher GHI score than Somalia—the country with the highest 2024 GHI score—if sufficient data were available.

The problem of hunger is complex, and different terms are used to describe its various forms. Undernourishment, as defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is the habitual consumption of too few calories to provide the minimum dietary energy an individual requires to live a healthy and productive life, given that person’s sex, age, stature, and physical activity level. Undernutrition goes beyond calories and signifies deficiencies in any or all of the following: energy, protein, and/or essential vitamins and minerals. Undernutrition is the result of inadequate intake of food in terms of either quantity or quality, poor utilization of nutrients due to infections or other illnesses, or a combination of these immediate causes.

While many countries experience widespread hunger, famine is a specific term defined by the UN as occurring when certain conditions are met: when at least 20 percent of the population faces extreme food shortages, acute child malnutrition rates reach or exceed 30 percent— meaning that children experience the most extreme and visible form of undernutrition—and two out of 10,000 people die from starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease on a daily basis.

India has long fought to ensure that the country would have a sufficient food supply to avert the devastation of famine experienced many decades ago. Indeed, the increases in rice and wheat yields brought about during India’s Green Revolution largely helped to establish India’s steady food supply, particularly of staple grains. These advances have ensured that famine in India has not been a threat in recent history. However, the Global Hunger Index is a multidimensional measure of hunger that reflects not only calorie deficiencies but also undernutrition, and it is child undernutrition, in particular, that drives up India’s GHI score. There are huge opportunities for India to tackle the full range of factors affecting all forms of hunger and undernutrition, just as it successfully tackled famine in past decades.

To capture the complex problem of hunger, the GHI report reflects the consequences of deficiencies in calories as well as deficiencies in micronutrients (known as “hidden hunger”). According to the World Health Organization and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, hidden hunger occurs when the quality of food people eat does not meet their nutrient requirements, so that they are not getting the essential vitamins and minerals they need for their growth and development. Deficiencies in calories and micronutrients are reflected in the four component indicators used to calculate the GHI (prevalence of undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality). These deficiencies may result from a range of underlying factors, including household food insecurity; inadequate maternal health or childcare practices; or inadequate access to health services, safe water, and sanitation.