How happy are Indians? World Happiness Index puts India behind Pakistan, China

India slipped 11 places from last year and is far behind all of its SAARC neighbours barring war-ravaged Afghanistan.

New Delhi: At 133, India has slipped 11 places in a recent World Happiness Report released by United Nations on Wednesday. The country fared far worse than Pakistan, Nepal and other SAARC countries with only war-ravaged Afghanistan faring even poorer.

The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network's (SDSN) 2018 World Happiness Report measures 156 countries on numerous parameters including healthy life expectancy, GDP per capita, social support, social freedom and rate of corruption. India was ranked 122 last year but this year, slipped even further. Even neighbouring countries like Bhutan (97), Nepal (101), Bangladesh (115) and Sri Lanka (116) fared far better. Despite being a hub of terror activities, Pakistan ranked far ahead of India at 75th and despite China having a strong censorship program, the country managed to take the 86th place in an index which did, however, note that Chinese only as happy now as they were 25 years ago.

Finland topped the index and was joined in the top-10 by several of its Scandinavian neighbours. It upstaged Norway from the top spot while other countries in the top of the list included Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. The United States was distant at 18th despite the index noting that people at large here had gotten richer on an average. The UK was 19th while oil-rich United Arab Emirates was placed 20th.