Our Correspondet / New Delhi
India’s slip on the world hunger index on Saturday triggered a poetic twitter war between Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and his political rival in Amethi Union Minister Smriti Irani.
Ms Irani mocked Mr Gandhi after he tweeted a report on the Global Hunger Index, according to which India had slipped three notches on the index and comes down to 100.
भूख है तो सब्र कर, रोटी नहीं तो क्या हुआ आजकल दिल्ली में है जेरे-बहस ये मुद्दआ – दुष्यंत कुमार
Office of RGVerified account @OfficeOfRG
The report was tweeted by Mr Gandhi with a Hindi couplet—Bhukh hai to sabr kar, roti nahin to kya hua, Aajkal Dilli mein zer-e-bahes hai ye muddoa(You might be hungry, but you should have patience, If you have nothing to eat, so what. This is the raging debate in Delhi these days).
Ms Irani sought to repulse the offensive with another couplet—‘Ai satta ke Bhukh, Sabra kar, Ankde saath nahin to kya hua, Khugharzon ko jama kar, Mulk ki badnaami ka shor to macha hi lengen’(ऐ सत्ता की भूख -सब्र कर, आँकड़े साथ नहीं तो क्या खुदगर्जों को जमा कर, मुल्क की बदनामी का शोर तो मचा ही लेंगे) smriti tweeted.
India has a ‘serious’ hunger problem at hand, with the country slipping three notches to 100 among 119 countries on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), 2017. This is worse than the likes of North Korea, Bangladesh, and Iraq, and better only than Pakistan and Afghanistan among Asian countries.
Over three-year duration, the data suggest that India has seen a slide of 45 positions from 55 in 2014. However, the rankings are not strictly comparable, as the current formula was introduced in 2015. The earlier formula was used to calculate GHI scores from 2006 to 2014.
The primary difference is that the new formula standardises indicator values, and the ‘child underweight’ parameter has been replaced by ‘child stunting’ and ‘child wasting’.
