44% kids below 3 years in India malnourished: UNFP

India is home to the largest number of undernourished people in the world, said country director of the United Nations World Food Programme (UNFP), and added that malnutrition in tribal areas is a vicious cycle of underdevelopment, ignorance and unemployment that requires a multi-pronged solution. Malnutrition among children below the age of three is pegged at nearly 44% against the sub-Saharan average of 25% in Africa, said Gian Peitro Bordignon, country director and India representative for the World Food Programme (WFP). “ India has the largest number of undernourished people in the world and one-third of the world's underweight children. There are more than 220 million people who are hungry and food-insecure in the country,” Bordignon said. The World Food Programme, which has been working in India to end hunger since 1963, has assisted over 1.5 million women and children in the country in 2007. (Source: 19 Feb 2008, Timesofindia.indiatimes.com)