New Delhi, Oct 24 (IANS): Newly-elected Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday attacked the Centre over India sliding down on hunger index, and said the government should solve the problem rather than discrediting the organisation.

"Rather than discrediting and ignoring reports by organizations, the @BJP4India Govt should work towards solving the hunger crisis.In the last 8 years, we have seen that there has been slow progress on this front and the Govt data also reveals the same," he said.

"Diwali celebrates victory over defeat and awareness over ignorance, an occasion to celebrate life with renewed hopes and new dreams.May this auspicious occasion light up your life with health, happiness and peace. Happy Diwali!",Kharge said.

A few days back, the Centre had said that "misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index".

"The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. 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. The fourth and most important indicator estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3,000," said a statement by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The Global Hunger Report 2022 released by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, Non-Government Organisations from Ireland and Germany, respectively, has ranked India at 107 among 121 countries.