According to an annual UN survey released to the public recently, India stood 133 is the world’s happiest country index while Finland, Norway and Denmark topped the list. Burundi was listed last on the list of 156 countries. The annual report was released days before the International Day of Happiness on March 20.
The results were based on six key factors namely GDP, Per Capita, Social Support, Healthy Life Expectancy, Freedom to make life choices, Generosity and Corruption.
Taking the harsh, dark winters in their stride, Finns said access to nature, safety, childcare, good schools and free healthcare were among the best things in their country, reports suggested.
India dropped down ten places, from being at 122nd spot in the World Happiness Report 2017 to landing at 133 in 2018.
The average ladder score was evaluated after asking people to evaluate the quality of their current lives on a scale of 0 to 10 for each country.
We spoke to people who voiced their reasons for India not making the cut to the top countries of the world.
“I don’t think given the current political glitches, unemployment, corruption and massive political influence in everything possible, can ever lead us to be in the top 50, leave alone top ten! Out of the number or parameters it was based on, more than half will never be met in India.
“Being one of the biggest democracies, it is comparatively difficult to cater to all the factors,” adds Prableen Virk, a school teacher.
For the first time the UN also examined the happiness levels of immigrants in each country and found that Finland also scored the highest. The United States came in at 18th, down from 14th place last year.
“Half the population is discontented here because of their expected salary versus the work pressure,” opines Mini Matharu, Bank Associate.
“If at all someone is content with the amount of salary they get, they don’t get enough leave to spend any leisure time with their family. In India, we have to even consider the number of holidays before we can decide to have a baby,” she says.
With the current status of the market, we can say that the country is eyeing a huge jump in the economic growth. However, with the various scams that involve bank forgery amounting to huge sums coming to light, the corruption aspect stays in focus.
“Healthy life-expectancy still needs to improve, while the freedom to take decisions remains a debatable argument,” quotes Nadeem, a Businessman.
In the fiscal year 2015–16, the Indian economy grew 7.6% topping the World Bank’s growth outlook in comparison to the 2016–17 fiscal year which saw the decline in growth to 7.1%. According to the IMF, India’s growth is expected to rebound to 7.2% in the 2017–18 fiscal and 7.7% in 2018–19.
Expressing her views on the status of India on the happiness scale, Preetha Jain, an Architect says, “This is not surprising to me. In a country where half of its population is still struggling to get equal status, equal voice and equal pay, what do you expect from it ? The prosperity of the country is definitely determined by the quality of life the citizens live there.
“In India, many still do not have basic access to education, sanitation, clean water and healthy food.
“The ideal thing would be to work towards improving the fundamental standard of living of our countrymen,” adds Preetha.
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#Views expressed in the article are those of the respondents and Pune365 doesn’t necessarily subscribe to them.
Reach her at loveleen@pune365.com or tweet @KaurKaur18
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