NEW DELHI: Amid government claims of improvement in ‘ease of living’ and India emerging as the world’s fastest-growing economy, the country hasn’t done well on the World Happiness Report 2023.
Though India has improved its ranking, it still holds the worst rank in the index, a barometer of the success of countries judged by the happiness of their people.
Earlier, India was ranked 136th, which has now reached 126 after a slight improvement of 10 points. Yet it is below Pakistan, which is facing the worst-ever economic crisis. Pakistan has been placed at 108th rank among 137 countries.
War-hit Russia and Ukraine have been ranked higher than India in the happiness report-2023 after being evaluated by experts on the basis of various factors covered in the wider survey. Russia, considered an all-weather friend of India, has been ranked at 70th position while Ukraine was 92nd in 2023 from 136 in 2022.
Though no official comment has come from the government side on the report, most Indian netizens have doubted India’s ranking in the report. Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG Enterprise from Mumbai in his tweet on the report, said: “I am saddened to see India perform miserably in what I believe is the most important parameter to reflect the state of the nation -- Global Happiness Index-2023.”
Echoing different sentiments on the report, another netizen Sankrant Sanu, author-founder of Garuda International Publishing Venture tweeted. “I would not take these surveys seriously. Pretty much everything is about the data design.” Sanchit Khandelwal, another netizen of India, rejected the report terming it ‘biased’ and agenda-driven indexes.
According to the report, India’s neighbour Nepal has been ranked 78th, far better than India in the happiness index. Sri Lanka, which also faced the worst economic crisis recently and recovered a bit with
the support of India has also been ranked 112th, better than India.