The Right to Food Campaign held a press conference in Delhi on October 21, 2022 highlighting the situation of hunger in India and the inadequate policy response of the government. All the speakers drew attention to the plight of people facing loss of livelihoods, low wages, inflation and hunger.
The Global Hunger Report 2022 ranks India at 107 among 121 countries. Each year since the report has been released in 2006 India has ranked extremely poorly highlighting that hunger and malnutrition remains a serious concern in the country. The current situation post-covid is even worse and is not entirely reflected in the report as the data are not available.
High levels of child malnutrition (stunting and wasting) in India are a reflection of food insecurity in households, poor dietary diversity, lack of maternal and child care services, low status of women and inadequate access to health and sanitation.
It is indeed a matter of concern that over 35% of children in the country are stunted (low height for age) and 19% children are wasted (low weight for height) according to the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021). The WHO prevalence cut-off values for public health significance state that stunting above 30% and wasting above 15% is “very high”.
All evidence points to increasing inequality and poverty in the country.
Right To Food Campaign Flags The Alarming Situation Of Hunger In The Country| Countercurrents
No comments:
Post a Comment