Bangalore: India ranks a poor 66th among 88 developing and transitional countries on the 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI-2008), says a report by Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

When different states were measured on the index Madhya Pradesh was worst. Punjab, considered as India's food bowl, also figured lower than countries like Gabon and Vietnam. It could not even measure up to the poorest countries of Africa like Sudan, Rwanda or Congo. The state was marked as 'extremely alarming'.

Startlingly the status of 12 of the 18 states have been marked as 'alarming'. These include Gujarath, Maharashtra , Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. These are apparently on the danger list.

The GHI has asserted the fact that despite the economic prowess that India displays it is much lower than many African countries in the fight against hunger. This revealing index was based on three indicators namely, prevalence of child malnutrition, rates of child mortality and proportion of people who are calorie deficient.

Results from the data revealed that India's high malnutrition rates and children below age five being underweight were causes of its low rank. Madhya Pradesh had 60 percent of its children aged below five underweight. In Bihar it was 56.1 percent. The figures for Punjab which is known as grain bank of North India was one fourth of its entire population.