World Happiness Report: India Ranks 139th Out Of 149 Countries

New Delhi: The World Happiness Report 2021 is out. Guess where India stands?

Well, our country has fared very poorly indeed – 139th out of 149 countries that have been evaluated.

The annual report, released by UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, has been collated slightly differently due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. The study has measured subjective well-being based on three principal parameters — life evaluations, positive emotions and negative emotions, reported Hindustan Times.

In the previous World Happiness Report, India had ranked 144 out of 156 countries.

Gallup World Poll, the principal source of data, asked people to evaluate their current life using the image of a ladder, on a scale of 0 to 10.

To measure positive emotions, respondents were asked whether they smiled or laughed a lot the previous day.

“Negative affect, for each person, is given by the average of their yes or no answers about three emotions: worry, sadness, and anger. National averages are created in the same way as for positive affect,” the report states.

Finland, like last year, once again emerged as the world’s happiest country, followed by Denmark and Switzerland.

Nine out of the top 10 on the list are European nations.

The United States has been ranked 19th, while China is No. 84. Afghanistan remains the least happy nation.