India State Hunger Index

The India State Hunger Index (ISHI) is a tool to calculate hunger and malnutrition at the regional level in India. It is constructed in the same fashion as the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2008 and was calculated for 17 states in India, covering more than 95 percent of the population.

The ISHI was developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and presented for the first time 2008 in conjunction with the Non-Governmental Organization Welthungerhilfe and the Department of Economics, University of California.

Despite the good economic performance, with over 200 million people who are food insecure, India is home to the largest number of hungry people in the world. In the ranking of the Global Hunger Index 2008 it covers position 66 out of 88 ranked countries and has an “alarming“ (23.7) food security situation. The major problem in the country is the high prevalence of underweight children under five, which is a result of low nutrition and educational status of women.

While there has been attention to hunger and undernourishment at the central level, within India's political system, states are important political units with regard to the planning and execution of development programs. Thus unpacking the hunger index at the level of the federal states is an important tool to build awareness of the disparities in hunger among them. In addition, the variability of the relative contribution of the underlying components of the hunger index across the different Indian states can help to stimulate the discussion about the drivers of hunger in different state contexts.

The ISHI is constructed in the same fashion as the Global Hunger Index which follows a multidimensional approach to measuring hunger and malnutrition. It combines three equally weighted indicators:

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