- Wednesday, April 24, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
India might be making fast progress on the economic front, rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s top economies but when it comes to happiness, it seems the south Asian nation still has miles to go to catch up with even some of its crisis-torn neighbours.
The country, which is about to become the most populous nation in the world pipping China, has been ranked 126th among 146 nations in the latest World Happiness Report published by a non-profit organisation launched by the United Nations.
The report was released on Monday (20) on the occasion of the International Day of Happiness.
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network unveils the report every year.
The index is based on findings from Gallup World Polls from 2020 and 2022 and includes responses from people who were asked to evaluate their quality of life. As many as six parameters were used to contribute to life evaluations and they are: gross domestic product, life expectancy, social support, generosity, corruption and freedom.
India’s latest ranking though was 10 places better than that in 2022 when it ended up at the 136th position. It scored 4.036 on a scale of 0 to 10.
Despite the 10-place improvement, India was much behind its south Asian neighbours such as Nepal (78), Pakistan (108), Sri Lanka (112) and Bangladesh (118). Pakistan and Sri Lanka are battling serious economic crises at the moment.
Finland, on the other hand, was adjudged the happiest country on the planet with a score of 7.804, while Denmark and Iceland came second and third, respectively.
Eight of the top 10 nations in the list were from Europe while Israel and New Zealand were the remaining ones.
Russia and Ukraine, which have been fighting a deadly war since February last year, also reported decent levels of happiness despite the conflict, according to the report. While Russia’s ranking went up to 70 this year from 80 last year, Ukraine’s went up from 98 to 92. Last year’s report was made based on the data from 2019 and 2021.
