The governance of hunger: Effectiveness of India's major nutrition missions and their correlation with GHI outcomes

Abstract

This paper examines the evolution of India’s hunger-reduction framework from food security to nutrition governance and its correspondence with the country’s Global Hunger Index (GHI) trajectory between 2000 and 2025. Synthesising three landmark missions the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS, 1975), the Mid-Day Meal Scheme restructured as PM POSHAN (1995 / 2021), and the POSHAN Abhiyaan expanded as POSHAN 2.0 (2018 / 2021) the paper argues that sectoral convergence, life-cycle coverage, digital monitoring, and behavioural change constitute the key governance mechanisms behind India’s improvement from an “Alarming” GHI score (38.1 in 2000) to a “Serious” level (25.8 in 2025). Each mission is linked conceptually to the four GHI dimensions undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and under-five mortality to demonstrate that POSHAN Abhiyaan / 2.0 serves as the integrator of earlier frameworks. Testable propositions are advanced regarding convergence intensity, digital accountability, sanitation synergy, and adolescent coverage. The findings suggest that sustained improvements require expanding diet diversity, micronutrient fortification, and last-mile governance to move toward nutrition rich India. POSHAN 2.0 (2021) marks a paradigm shift toward unified, technology-enabled nutrition governance.