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UN Agency Names Indians Amongst The Unhappiest People In The World
Based on News Report by REUTERS
India was ranked at 133 in the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s (SDSN) 2018 World Happiness Report which ranked 156 countries according to things such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.
India has experienced a steady slide downwards towards rock bottom under Modi’s Hindutva / BJP / RSS rule. Last year (2017), it ranked 122nd in the world. Only one year earlier, in 2016, it was 118th.
The country, ridden by corruption, internecine violence, hunger and disease, continues to plummet on the list since the first such report was issued for 2010-12, when it ranked 111th.
Even more significant is that India has consistently ranked behind both Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Finland is the world’s happiest country, according to an annual survey released today (Wednesday, March 14, 2018) that found Americans were getting less happy even as their country became richer.
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 about in their country.
“I’ve joked with the other Americans that we are living the American dream here in Finland,” said Brianna Owens, who moved from the United States and is now a teacher in Espoo, Finland’s second biggest city with a population of around 280,000.
“I think everything in this society is set up for people to be successful, starting with university and transportation that works really well,” Owens told Reuters.
Finland, rose from fifth place last year to oust Norway from the top spot. The 2018 top-10, as ever dominated by the Nordics, is: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia.
The United States came in at 18th, down from 14th place last year. Britain was 19th and the United Arab Emirates 20th.
One chapter of the 170-page report is dedicated to emerging health problems such as obesity, depression and the opioid crisis, particularly in the United States where the prevalence of all three has grown faster than in most other countries.
While US income per capita has increased markedly over the last half century, happiness has been hit by weakened social support networks, a perceived rise in corruption in government and business and declining confidence in public institutions.
“We obviously have a social crisis in the United States: more inequality, less trust, less confidence in government,” the head of the SDSN, professor Jeffrey Sachs of New York’s Columbia University, told Reuters as the report was launched at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
“It’s pretty stark right now. The signs are not good for the US It is getting richer and richer but not getting happier.”
Asked how the current political situation in the United States could affect future happiness reports, Sachs said:
“Time will tell, but I would say that in general that when confidence in government is low, when perceptions of corruption are high, inequality is high and health conditions are worsening ... that is not conducive to good feelings.”
For the first time since it was started in 2012, the report, which uses a variety of polling organisations, official figures and research methods, ranked the happiness of foreign-born immigrants in 117 countries.
Finland took top honours in that category too, giving the country a statistical double-gold status.
The foreign-born were least happy in Syria, which has been mired in civil war for seven years.
“The most striking finding of the report is the remarkable consistency between the happiness of immigrants and the locally born,” said professor John Helliwell of Canada’s University of British Columbia.
“Although immigrants come from countries with very different levels of happiness, their reported life evaluations converge towards those of other residents in their new countries,” he said.
“Those who move to happier countries gain, while those who move to less happy countries lose.”
March 14, 2018
Conversation about this article
1: Indu Biswas (New Delhi, India - (Also Known as The Rape Capital of The World)), March 14, 2018, 1:56 PM.
Why does it matter that 1.2 billion Indians are unhappy and amongst the worst-off in the world? As long as 101 Indians are billionaires -- Whoopy!! -- why should anyone be concerned over the rest of us being unhappy? Unless, of course, you are worried about our obscenely rich few who are fat, ugly and forever clawing for more and more!
2: Prabhakar Ojha (Orissa, India), March 14, 2018, 2:02 PM.
It's all the fault of the Sikhs in Canada! And Justin Trudeau, of course. But for them, we'd would be, oh, so-o-o happy.
3: Raghunath Kohli (Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India), March 14, 2018, 2:15 PM.
Not to worry, Indu ji and Prabhakar ji. All we Hindus have to do to be happy, according to our Chief Minister (U.P.) Yogi Adityanath ji, is drink a glass of cow urine, and then a glass of our own urine, everyday, and the rest will be okay. After all, he says, it is Ayurveda and therefore the cure of all evils. Especially our collective unhappiness! Jai Hind!
4: Rehras Kaur (New Delhi, India), March 14, 2018, 4:49 PM.
Hindutva India will never be happy, and will continue to sink day by day, with every day that goes by without justice vis-a-vis the Sikh Genocide of the 1980s and -90s. The ghosts of the innocents will haunt each and every soul that contributed to the outrages through both action and omission, through mischief, criminality, personal profit or convenience, negligence, or even indifference.
5: Girish Patel (Mumbai, India), March 14, 2018, 4:54 PM.
Yes, a curse blankets this entire land and I am convinced will remain to plague us as long as this country does not atone for its terrible sins.
6: Pardeep Shah (Fairfax, Virginia, USA), March 16, 2018, 8:43 PM.
H-mm-m... Every country on happiest list is cold and snow covered for most of the year. All India has to do is, move 1.3 billion people to Kashmir glaciers. They should be lead by PM and his cabinet to start with, followed by all 'patriotic' MPs. Problem solved ...
7: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), March 16, 2018, 9:56 PM.
South Asia has been invaded by just about every western power and the British could have befriended the Sikhs and made India and the whole world educated, civilzed and humanistic using the Sikh ethos and its advanced and timeless civilization but instead chose to usurp their sovereign Sikh State and cause long-lasting chaos and corruption on the subcontinent. India can never be a happy country because there are too many Indians and not enough resources for all of them so contraception is vital to save the sanity of a nation ridiculed for having so many zombies and only praised when a Sikh is in the news.