Bangladesh happier than India and Pakistan

Bangladesh has been ranked as the world’s 94th happy country in the list of an annual report released by the United Nations on Friday.

The 10th annual World Happiness Report has ranked India at a lowly 136, even below Pakistan, which is at 121, on the list.

It means that Bangladesh is happier than India and Pakistan.

The report ranked Finland as the world’s happiest country for the fifth year in a row, with Denmark coming in second, followed by Iceland, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Afghanistan ranked as the unhappiest countries in the world, with Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Botswana rounding out the bottom five.

In this year’s report, the US came in at number 16. Its neighbor Canada, however, placed at number 15. France reached its highest ranking to date, at number 20.

Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania recorded the biggest boosts in wellbeing.

Lebanon, which is facing economic meltdown, fell to second from last on the index of 146 nations, just below Zimbabwe, reports AFP.

War-traumatised Afghanistan, already bottom of the table, has seen its humanitarian crisis deepen since the Taliban took power again last August.

UN agency UNICEF estimates one million children under five could die of hunger this winter if not aided.

“This (index) presents a stark reminder of the material and immaterial damage that war does to its many victims,” co-author Jan-Emmanuel De Neve said.

The World Happiness Report, now in its 10th year, is based on people’s own assessment of their happiness, as well as economic and social data.

It assigns a happiness score on a scale of zero to 10, based on an average of data over a three-year period. This latest edition was completed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

So what makes Finland so happy? “Research shows that high national ranking on these surveys is not so much about culture. It’s more about how a country’s institutions take care of their people—this leads to higher ratings of life satisfaction,” says Aalto University expert Frank Martela, a philosopher and the author of the book A Wonderful Life – Insights on Finding a Meaningful Experience (HarperCollins 2020).