Ajit Karn
According to the annual World Happiness Report, Finland is the nicest country on the planet. This is the sixth year in a row that they have won the esteemed award due to their high scores on the factors used by the report to measure happiness: per capita GDP, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and low corruption. Monday, March 20th, was International Day of Happiness and the report was published on that day. India is rated 125th based on the numerous happiness parameters.
CNN reported that the World Happiness Report is a publication of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network based on global survey data from more than 150 countries.
This year’s rankings are comparable to those of previous years, with many Nordic nations occupying the top positions. While Denmark is rated second, Iceland is ranked third.
“Because of their generally high levels of personal and institutional trust, the Nordic countries deserve special consideration. In 2020 and 2021, they had COVID-19 mortality rates that were only a third as high as the rest of Western Europe – 27 per 100,000 in the Nordic countries compared to 80 in the rest of Western Europe, according to the report’s authors.
John Helliwell, one of the authors, told CNN, “Benevolence to others, particularly the assistance of strangers, which increased dramatically in 2021, remained high in 2022.”
“Even during these difficult years, positive emotions have remained twice as prevalent as negative emotions, and feelings of positive social support have remained twice as strong as feelings of isolation,” the author added.
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India, one of the economies with the fastest growth, was ranked 126th in the report, below Nepal, China, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
Intriguingly, the Russia-Ukraine conflict led to a decline in the rankings of both nations. Ukraine is rated 92, while Russia is ranked 72.
