Hyderabad: India fell to a lowly 140 out of 156 countries in the United Nation’s World Happiness Report 2019 released on Wednesday, going down seven spots from its ranking of 133 in 2018.
Pakistan is ranked 67th, Bangladesh 125th and China is place at 93rd, according to the report.
The survey looked at six key variables — well-being, income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support and generosity.
This is the seventh annual World Happiness Report, which ranks the world’s 156 countries on the manner in which their citizens perceive themselves as happy.
Mr Happymon Jacob, who teaches disarmament and national security at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, commented, “There is a sense of distrust and insecurity which is visible in society, and people are scared to approach a stranger in the present times. These negative emotions can be seen and felt in the society and it reflects in the surveys carried out.”
The United Nations survey finds that, overall, world happiness has fallen over the past few years, and India being a large country, its sustained drop is reflecting in the world index.
The survey noted that there has been an increase in negative emotions, anxiety, sadness, anger and worry among people.
K. Padmanabhaiah, former home secretary, said the concept of happiness “is very vague and it is not understood how these calculations are carried out and comparisons done at the international level.”
He said happiness was a relative term. “When there are controversies in the calculation of a definite index like the Gross Domestic Product, how can these relative indexes be relied on?"
The World Happiness Report ranked India 111 in 2013, and from then on the slide has been rapid with India now at 140 in 2019. Among other countries in Asia, Pakistan’s ranking is 67, Bangladesh’s 125, and China’s 93. Finland is ranked as the happiest country in the world for the second year in a row.
