Global Hunger Index 2026: India ranks 100th of 122 as child wasting rises to 19%

India has been ranked 100th out of 122 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2026, published this week by the aid groups Concern Worldwide, Welthungerhilfe and Helvetas. India's score of 24.1 places it in the "serious" category of hunger. Among the four measures that make up the index, child wasting, the share of children under five who are too thin for their height, rose to 19.0 per cent from 16.9 per cent, the highest in South Asia. Undernourishment in the population fell to 9.8 per cent and child stunting declined to 29.3 per cent, while the under-five mortality rate stood at 2.7 per cent. The report was released around October 15, 2026, ahead of World Food Day on October 16.

The Global Hunger Index combines four indicators into a single score: undernourishment across the population, child stunting (low height for age), child wasting (low weight for height) and child mortality. India's score improved on paper from last year, and two indicators, undernourishment and stunting, moved in the right direction. The worrying figure is wasting, which measures acute undernutrition: children who are too thin for their height. A rise from 16.9 per cent to 19 per cent means roughly one in five young children is affected, on the index's figures.

India runs large food and nutrition programmes, from subsidised grain through the public distribution system to supplementary nutrition through anganwadi centres. On the index's figures, the country is doing better on population-wide undernourishment and on long-term stunting, but acute undernutrition among young children has moved the wrong way.

The Government of India has rejected the index in past years. In 2023, when India was ranked 111th, the Ministry of Women and Child Development called it a flawed measure of hunger, objecting that three of the four indicators relate to children's health and cannot represent the whole population, and that the undernourishment estimate rests on a small opinion poll. Reports on the 2026 edition so far do not carry a fresh government response.

Short-term: The ranking is likely to revive political debate over nutrition schemes, and the government may again question the method. Health and nutrition experts are likely to focus on the rise in child wasting and on states where it is concentrated.

Long-term: The index will be read alongside India's own nutrition surveys. For the rural economy, it is a reminder that food production and child nutrition are tracked separately, and that progress on one does not automatically show up in the other.

Who is affected: Young children and mothers in poor and rural households; anganwadi and health workers who deliver nutrition schemes; state governments that run food programmes; farmers and food producers whose output feeds public schemes; and policymakers in the Women and Child Development and Food ministries.

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