NEW DELHI — Roughly 42 percent of all Indian children under age 5 suffer from malnutrition, a sobering reminder of the persistence of poverty and hunger in the world’s largest democracy, according to a major report released on Tuesday

“The problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said as the study was released. “Despite impressive growth in our G.D.P., the level of undernutrition in the country is unacceptably high.”

The new findings came from a survey of 73,000 households in nine Indian states conducted by the Naandi Foundation, an independent charitable group. They pointed up India’s nagging difficulties in reducing poverty and hunger among its 1.2 billion people, despite robust economic growth over the last decade. Known as the Hungama survey, the report comes at a time when Indian lawmakers are in heated debate over the costs and social benefits of broadly expanding the country’s subsidized food program.

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