New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) The Centre on Friday said it was shocking that India's rank was lowered on the Global Hunger Index, terming the methodology used for rankings "unscientific".

India slipped to 101st position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021 of 116 countries, from its 2020 position of 94th. It is now behind its neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

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Reacting sharply to the report, the Women and Child Development Ministry said it is "shocking" to find that the Global Hunger Report 2021 has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO estimate on proportion of undernourished population which is found to be "devoid of ground reality and facts and suffers from serious methodological issues".

"The publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, Concern Worldwide and Welt Hungerhilfe, have not done their due diligence before releasing the report," the ministry said in a statement. The methodology used by FAO is "unscientific", the ministry claimed.

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(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)