INDIA:Despite being the world's second fastest growing economy after China, India has failed to eradicate hunger among a large proportion of its population of more than 1.2 billion.
The International Food Policy Research Institute, in its latest Global Hunger Index 2007, has placed India 94th out of 118 countries. It lags behind neighbouring China and Pakistan, ranked at 47th and 88th positions respectively on the hunger quotient.
According to the report, 40 per cent of the world's underweight children aged under five are in India, while more than half of all babies with low birth weight continue to be born in south Asia.
The analysis also reveals that growth in India's agricultural sector lags seriously behind that in other sectors, resulting in a negative impact on poverty alleviation and hunger across rural communities.
In addition, the lower castes and certain ethnic minorities are discriminated against, pushing them further into impoverishment and starvation.
Gender discrimination too adversely affects the situation. "In some parts of India, male family members eat first and women make do with leftovers. This increases the chances of children of undernourished and anemic mothers being born underweight," the report states.
India's switch in the early 1990s to a market economy resulted in an average growth in gross domestic product after 2001 of around 8 per cent - the world's second highest after China - and a buoyant stock market that has boosted domestic confidence. This in turn led to foreign investors from the West flocking to India, further bolstering national economic growth.
But the fruits of these achievements have remained confined to a small minority with social, economic and environmental justice, and have not been enjoyed by the vast majority of Indians.
A recent study by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector found that 77 per cent of the population lives on just under half a US dollar a day.
According to another official report entitled Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in Unorganized Sector, 395 million out of 457 million workers in India are employed in sectors like agriculture, construction, weaving and fishing, and only 0.4 per cent have access to any form of social security.
Meanwhile, in a related development, a UN report states that India is unlikely to achieve the millennium development goals by the 2015 deadline, seven years after committing itself to them.
These include alleviating poverty, reducing child mortality and killer diseases like tuberculosis and Aids, improving environmental degradation, and access to drinking water and education. The mid-term UN assessment, however, suggested that no country, including China, was on track to meet all targets.