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India's malnourished people comprise just over 15 per cent of the population. —AFP/File
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Approximately 194.6 million people are undernourished in India which accounts for the highest number of people suffering from hunger in any single country, said a report published on The Times of India.
The global number of malnourished people fell by 216 million in the early 90s and 2015, from over a billion to 795 million. However, India's contribution in this reduction has been small as her number fell by just 15.5 million.
This has led to India overtaking China, where numbers fell from 289 million in 1990-1992 to 133.8 million as per recent estimates.
The fall in China's numbers also led to the south-east Asian region contributing most to the global decline as revealed in a report called State of Food Security in the World 2015 released by UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation.
Along with the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), India missed the goal set up at the World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996 when various governments pledged to reduce the number of undernourished people by 2015. Out of 172 countries that were being monitored, 29 — including Nepal — met the WFS goal.
Although the overall hunger reduction has contributions from China and India, the highest strain of hunger in absolute terms was found in southern Asia.
Assessments for 2014-16 suggested that approximately 281 million people were malnourished in the region, which led to just a slight decline of 10 million people from 291 million in 1990-1992. The stagnant decline particularly in India had a compelling influence on results for the region.
The significant exceptions in the region were Nepal and Bangladesh. Nepal reached both the WFS target as well as MDG and is moving towards bringing down the number of undernourished people to less than five per cent of the population.
Bangladesh reached the MDG target with the National Food Policy framework — which was adopted in the mid-2000s — being given credit for this accomplishment.
In India, the malnourished comprise just over 15 per cent of the population.
India's lack of progess has remained ambiguous. Explanations offered for the disparity between food consumption and income levels include poor data, inequality and the challenges that arise in capturing the changes in energy requirements of the country's population.
The UN report also noted that calorie consumption being lower than what poverty rages and per capita incomes suggest remained incomprehensible.
Food security in Pakistan
Pakistan is currently home to approximately 41.4m under-nourished people, according to the UN FAO Hunger Map 2015 — about 22pc of the country's population.
While the number of hungry in India has shown a decline over the last 25 years, the number of under-nourished in Pakistan displays an upward trend.
There were 28.7m hungry in Pakistan in the 90's — a number that has steadily increased between 1990 and 2015, with the seven years between 2005 and 2012 displaying relatively slower growth in the number of hungry people.
Number of under-nourished in Pakistan
1990-1992: 28.7m
2000-2002: 34.4m
2005-2007: 38.1m
2010-2012: 38.8m
2014-2016: 41.4m
Comments (39)
India housed billion plus population. Reporting absolute number is a misleading, however, should report in percentage....
And both Pakistan and India are nuclear nations while their people are malnutritioned. Isn't that sad? Do you think our leaders can learn from these statistics? Probably not.
still we south asians are busy in buying weapons... !!!
sad as an Indian. we need move fast , we don't want to see any Indian hungry. we achieved Polio irradiation , now this may one on our agenda.
This is terrible condition in South Asia.I dont know where the money goes.Poor are getting free food,free laptop,free every thing on the tax payers money,still they are hungry.They are getting Rs2/kg rice and Rs3/kg wheat.still they are hungry.god knows where the money goes.
Economic super power?
Disturbing to see these figures, both for India and Pakistan. For the former it is the absolute numbers of almost 200 million, for the latter the percentage of 22 pc. Also significant is the tremendous reduction between 1996 and 2015 of China, by about 150 million, ten times India's figure. India and Pakistan both have a lot of catching up to do. Better do it fast instead of finding fault with each other and trying to show who is better. Neither is good enough.
Both Pakistan and India are poor countries but spending billions of dollars on arms. Rich is becoming richer whereas poor is becoming poor due to discriminatory policies of both countries.Pakistan and India are suggested to spend more money on the welfare of their public and spend less money on purchasing of arms. Better to adopt deweaponization policy in South Asia.
Instead of spending huge sums of money on arms, both India and Pakistan need to take care of their poor populations.
it is the biggest challenge and india should work non stop. food security bill should be implemented immediately at ground level with out any delay.
@Keen read the whole report, somthing clearly you didnt do.
Shinning India!!
@Keen ....Thanks Dawn, for letting us know something which we didn't know already...So from today Indians will dream to become Economic Super power and achieve this dream too like we dreamt and accomplished Mars mission etc etc etc...Ek Bharatiya from MCG
@Keen .. Indian population is 1.22 billion, with 195 mil hungry.. Hunger ratio is roughly 6%. Compare to Pakistan population being 185 mil, with 41.4 mil hungry,so ratio is 4% .. Conclusion - There are 925 million who eat in India every day compared to 140 million in Pakistan. Super power indeed!
Number of under-nourished in Pakistan 1990-1992: 28.7m 2000-2002: 34.4m 2005-2007: 38.1m 2010-2012: 38.8m 2014-2016: 41.4m
This should be our priority. We have to provide jobs and eliminate the poverty. Our priorities are totally ridiculous. Government should do more to help the needful and we as a society should help Government.
Its very sad news. India also has a very high suicide rate. The hunger and poverty drives thousands of Indians to suicide every year. I am Indian by the way.
All commentators on this news forum, have you all read the report or just jumped into comments section. Here reports clearly states that In India, the malnourished comprise just over 15 per cent of the population whereas Pakistan is currently home to approximately 41.4m under-nourished people, which is about 22percent of the country's population.
On the one hand there is a news item about luxury hospitals and the same day this news. What a contrast and this is on both sides of the border. Some how this disparity has to be fixed.
15% malnutrition in India, 22% in Pakistan, nothing for either side to crow about.
Was thinking that Indias GDP per head is about 20% higher than Pakistans, might explain the difference, but if Nepal and Bangladesh can make greater progress than the two largest South Asian nations, despite lower GDP, we need to learn from them.
@Keen look at the last part of the article
While the number of hungry in India has shown a decline over the last 25 years, the number of under-nourished in Pakistan displays an upward trend.
India : 194.6/1250 = around 16 % Pakistan: 22 %
But it is still bad for both countries!!!
now many of them so happy to hear india on top...!! but no will notice who is third with one tenth of population of india in same region
@Keen Atleast there number are reducing and they have reduced that to 15% compared to our number which are increasing year by year. India has 15% hungry people but we have 22%. I think we should atleast compete in this figure, being smaller country we can perform better than India.
Its a vexed problem. Poor people produce more children and compound their poverty. Sterilisation is a taboo topic in our cultures and birth control among couples is left largely to the illiterate woman. Not an easy problem to tackle at all !
@iloveladoos Imagine, you were part of that hunger population. You will not be happy to make comments like that. Grow Up, do you know that even in percentage or number, India hunger population exceeds. It is not about India or Pakistan, it is about those hunger population who is living in misery that comes at night from heavy day of work to find 1/3 of the used, expired bread to eat and lying to yourself that you ate. For them, eating a proper food once is like celebrating birthday.
I wonder why people are fighting over whose country has less no of hungry people; why don't we come up with ideas for reducing this type of hunger for every one since every human being need to eat apart from religion and nation
This is an eye-opener. All those who make haughty claims when they see one bit of good news with claims of “awesome” are conspicuously missing!
People love to compare size of their economies but Total GDP gives misleading indicators. Per capita GDP is far more relevant. India and Pakistan are ranked 125 and 134 respectively with per capita GDP of just $5855 and $4736 and that too after PPP adjustment. So, a lot to catch up before feeling good! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListofcountriesbyGDP%28PPP%29per_capita
We have got 30million people out of poverty in last 10 year. We are no right track.
@iloveladoos Actually percentage wise India is 15.2% not 6% my friend! and 41.4 million in pakistan in pakistan is 22% of the population. Here is the original article
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-is-home-to-194-million-hungry-people-un/article7255937.ece
Malnutrition across Asia
Pakistan 22%, India 15%, China 9% and Nepal 7.8%
Malnutrition is not about money, but political will.
@satender rajput
let us not confuse the issues. arms are needed to protect the country from external aggression. only once the borders are safe can we concentrate on feeding our millions.
@point of view The percentage is 15 pc. Isn't that bad enough ? And these are the malnourished. What about the just- about-nourished yet very poor, and the same who are poor and have no disposable surplus and so on.
@satender rajput : Becuase we don't have any other option and somehow India has been forced to do this due its past history. India never attacked any country in the last more than 2000 years but it was attacked by outsiders. So we must need to maintan good army to protect our land.
It does not mean that we should neglect our people's poor condition, we must need to work to improve this.
Oh can you help us and save us from heat and hunger. What are you going to do with your surpluses?. Being a wealthy nation Pl help us?
"India need to have compete China.China has no. 133 and India is 194,it is difficult task for India as it's population is increased.But both should come to position 100 in 5 years which should be the target"
I don't know how a person or individual hungry with two hand & two legs.. if anybody doing hard work for him or his family then how hunger live in any country?
Few questions :
1.How did they arrive at such a figure. 2.what should a nation in such circumstances. Feed them, even if they are not willing to work or train them , so that they can find themselves work. 3.Should we as a nation stop giving humanitarian assistance to even poorer countries and instead use it feed the malnourished ones. 4.Does taking care of malnourished people is the sole responsibility of government or the fellow citizens aswell.
I guess once we have the answers of the above, the count will really go down.
An indian
Yet India is spending $10+ Billion on French jets. Makes no sense at all. Making peace with Pakistan and China is in India's own interests!
India home to a billion plus population. Everything is proportional.