India stands at the 67th spot among 81 nations listed (in the decreasing order) by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in its recently released global hunger index (GHI) report 2011. However, a poverty of statistics could be responsible for India's poor showing as the government has failed to update the child malnourishment figure which is considered in calculating the index. As a result, even though the country had a GHI of 23.7 - lower than last year's - its rank on the list remains unchanged.

GHI is calculated considering two factors apart from child malnourishment: child mortality rate and the proportion of the population considered calorie deficient.

India's ranking has been undermined as it is based on data from 2004-2006.  It has been placed in the 'alarming' category of hunger prevalence in the list.

Shamingly, the GHI figure is higher than it was 15 years ago. The emerging Asian superpower also has to contend with the ignominy of having fared worse than neighbours Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan. Rwanda and Sudan, from the famine belt of sub-Saharan Africa, have performed better than India. The fact that it performs better than Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations in the world, quake-devastated Haiti and strife-torn Congo is consolation.

IFPRI reports that the low socioeconomic and health status of women has been pushing the child malnourishment figure up.

According to the report, Bangladesh, India, and Timor-Leste have the highest prevalence of underweight in children younger than five – the figure is more than 40 percent in all three countries.

The report also talked about inflation affecting the poor. “Countries with high net food imports tend to have high GHI scores, and high food inflation affects countries with large numbers of poor people such as China, India, and Indonesia,” the report said.

"The poorest and most vulnerable people bear the heaviest burden when food prices spike or swing unpredictably," said Klaus von Grebmer, lead author of the report.

This is the sixth year that IFPRI has announced its GHI list.

Read the report