The Global Hunger Report, 2022, highlighted a major lapse in India's healthcare/nutrition system. Health, along with education, forms the foundation of the human resource pool. And human development, undeniably, is the core component of overall growth of the nation. The GHI report should have served as a clarion call for improvement in the sector but, on the contrary, the Indian government has stirred an altogether different debate by questioning its legitimacy. The moot point is that such a comparative assessment is essential for directional policy formation. If the government denies the GHI report, it must be ready with an alternate set of comprehensive data. India has been ranked at 107th position out of 127 developing countries on the Global Hunger Index (GHI). Shockingly, in the South Asian region, only Afghanistan trails behind India. All other neighbouring countries — including Pakistan (99), Bangladesh (84), Nepal (81), and Sri Lanka (64) — are better ranked than India. India's GHI score has improved from 38.8 points in 2000 (considered alarming) to 29.1 points in 2022, which still lies in the "serious" category. Notably, India's GHI score had improved to its level best in 2014 at 28.2 points. The Global Hunger Report, released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe — two non-profit organisations based out of Ireland and Germany, respectively — is based on assessment of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population, stunting, wasting and under-5 mortality. The Indian government's contention is that three out of the four indicators used for calculation of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population. Given the lifelong impact that three indicators — stunting, wasting and under-5 mortality — have on individual human beings, their vitality and comprehensiveness cannot be undermined. Furthermore, by citing "other factors" like drinking water, sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake which may contribute to the three indicators, the government cannot undercount the fact that hunger has been the most prominent contributor. More importantly, the government highlighted that the estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is faulty because the questionnaire was inappropriate and sample size for the opinion poll was very small at 3,000. This is indeed a major shortcoming. The Indian government must furnish its own set of comprehensive and objective data in this direction. However, given that the report and the index are more of comparative nature, the same method must have been applied for all countries — providing at least an indicative reference to the standing of all compared nations in relation to each other. Alleged drawbacks in research methodology apart, the government's core perspective around the Global Hunger Report also appears to be flawed. It sees the report as "a consistent effort" to taint India's image as a nation. It is unfortunate that policy assessments are being viewed as image-building and image-tainting exercises. The expectation that the GHI report should have taken note of "efforts made by the government to ensure food security for the population" is bereft of any concrete logic. The PIB release, as a counterfactual to the GHI report's claims, has laid out a long list of measures that the government has initiated over the years. What was required instead was a concrete set of data that would negate the claims made by the GHI report. The measures taken by the Government of India may be termed irrelevant to the findings of the report. The report's domain lies in the overall outcome, success and assessment of the said schemes, and not their initiation or announcement. It is inappropriate to focus on image-building when the question in front of us is as big as one concerning the health and life of Indian citizens. Wasting, stunting and overall undernourishment are indeed major problems in India. NFHS-5 data itself stated that in India, 35.5 per cent of children below five years were stunted and 32.1 per cent were underweight. These numbers have serious socio-economic repercussions for the country. A World Bank Report had noted that "one per cent loss in adult height due to childhood stunting is associated with a 1.4 per cent loss in economic productivity." To our discomfort, India has been ranked pretty low on the human capital index as well. Just because the government has initiated a plethora of schemes, a problem as evident as hunger cannot be discarded in a single go. There is a need to wake up, genuinely take stock of the situation, and devise appropriate policies. A nation's present and future is way more important than the image of its government.