New Delhi: The government is in a denial mode on the poverty and hunger index ranking, said former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram. He told reporters on Tuesday the Modi government was in denial mode and was evident when it rejected India’s 107 ranking on the Global Hunger Index.
“The UNDP and the Oxford HDI have confirmed what we have said several times: that the UPA government had best record in lifting people out of poverty,” he said. According to him, the report released on Monday confirmed that 27.39 crore were lifted out of poverty in the ten years of the UPA government.
“Yet, it is a stern warning to India that 16.4 per cent of the population (22.8 crore) was still poor in 2019-20. That number got worse in the subsequent two years because of the pandemic and the lockdowns. The first task of any government is to overcome the challenges of poverty, hunger and malnutrition,” he said.
Nevertheless, the Centre said that misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index. A statement issued by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) denied the Global Hunger Report 22 released by Concern Worldwide from Ireland and Welt Hunger Hilfe, both non-government organisations, ranked India at 107 out of 121 countries. The WCD statement said, “The index is erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. Three out of the four indicators used for calculation of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population.”
