Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.Hunger is an emotive word. Most of us reading this are fortunate to have enough to eat. We find the idea that the other people live in hunger deeply unsettling. Hence, it is also unsettling that the well-publicised 2022 Global Hunger Index has ranked India at 107 out of 121 countries. It has ranked India behind North Korea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria and Congo. This doesn't seem to make much sense. But people don't really like digging through the actual reports and methodology. They read the headline and comment on that and move on.The GHI report is jointly released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, non-government organisations from Ireland and Germany, respectively. Both are good organisations with long and reputed track records. The report is a 60-page beautiful PDF document, with its heart in the right place. The formatting and language are perfect. It has beautiful pictures, such as of African farm women holding vegetables.At the same time, its rankings are highly questionable. Four criteria are used to determine the final index: prevalence of undernourishment, child stunting rate, child wasting rate, and child mortality. Thus, three of the four criteria are related to children. Child stunting rate is defined as the percentage of children that are two standard deviations below the reference height for a 5-year-old. Child wasting rate is defined as the percentage of children that are two standard deviations below the reference weight for a 5-year-old. The argument is that if our children are not tall enough or do not weigh enough, it is an indicator of national hunger. It is in these parameters that India scored poorly, hence the slippage in rank.The GHI report takes India's data from our own National Family Health Survey 2019-21. This in turn is prepared by the health and family welfare ministry, by surveying a sizable sample of over 61 lakh households. In this 700-plus page survey report also, there is data for India's child stunting and child wasting rates. It says 36% of Indian kids are stunted and 19% of the children are wasted. These are some of the highest values in the world. Plug these into the GHI criteria spreadsheet, India ranks low, behind even North Korea. We are a starving nation! Select the correct summary of the given passage.
- AThe organisations prepared GHI with unquestionable criteria taken all the things into consideration.
- BPrimarily based on the children's height and weight, the nation's GHI 2022 was calculated, so India's place was 107 which is questionable.
- CChild growth is important though india is trying hard to combat the problem. When it is addressed, India will not be a hunger country
- DThe GHI report is good with perfect language, but the pictures are not beautiful and colourful.
Solution & Step-by-step Explanation
Option B provides an accurate and precise summary of the text. The passage primarily discusses how India's 107th rank in GHI 2022 is questionable because the index relies heavily on parameters concerning children's physical measurements (height and weight for age), which may not accurately reflect overall widespread national starvation.