Govt in denial mode on Global Hunger Index ranking: P Chidambaram

Veteran Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said that the Narendra Modi-led Central Government is in "denial mode" vis-a-vis challenge of poverty, hunger and malnutrition, which he claimed was more evident when it rejected the latest Global Hunger Index report.

In the recent report of the Global Hunger Index, India ranked 107 out of 121 countries with its child-wasting rate at 19.3 per cent, the highest in the world.

Right after the report, India rejected the Global Hunger index 2022, saying it suffers from "serious methodological issues" and chooses to "deliberately ignore" efforts made by Government to ensure food security for its population. In a statement, the Ministry of Women and Child Development stressed that it is a consistent effort to taint India's image as a nation.

"The first task of any government is to overcome the challenges of poverty, hunger and malnutrition Sadly, the Modi government is in denial mode as was evident when it rejected India's 107 ranking in the Global Hunger Index," the Congress leader tweeted this morning in reaction to India's response to the Global Hunger Index.

Further, quoting data from the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022 prepared by UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Institute, which said the number of poor people dropped by about 415 million in India over the past 15 years and the Multidimensional Poverty Index value and incidence of poverty has more than halved, Chidambaram said: "UNDP and Oxford HDI have confirmed what we have said several times: that the UPA government had the best record in lifting people out of poverty."

The poorest of Indian states reduced poverty the fastest, and deprivations in all indicators fell significantly among poor people, the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2022 said on Monday.

"In India 415 million people exited poverty between 2005/06 and 2019/21, demonstrating that the Sustainable Development Goal target 1.2 of reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions by 2030 is possible to achieve--and at scale," it said.

Of the nearly 415 million people who exited poverty in the 15 years prior, roughly 275 million did so between 2005/2006 and 2015/2016 - when Congress was in power for most of the time, and 140 million did so between 2015/2016 and 2019/2021, the report said.

Further, Chidambaram quoting Monday's report which mentioned that about 16.4 per cent of India's population lives in poverty, said: "Yet, it is a stern warning to India that 16.4 per cent of the population (22.8 crores) was still poor in 2019-20 That number got worse in the subsequent two years because of the pandemic and the lockdowns."

(ANI)

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