Text credit: Charishma Thankappan

It’s one of the gloomiest countries, but only in terms of climate. Finland has been declared as the happiest country in the world by the United Nations in its annual World Happiness Report.

Topping the list of 156 countries, Finland was chosen as the nation with the best rank in various criteria such as life expectancy, social support, and corruption.

Despite lacking in natural sunshine for a large part of the year with bitter cold winters, which are conventionally linked with high rates of depression; Finland overtook Norway from last year to emerge as the place to find happiness. The information revealed that there was a notable regularity in the state of ‘happiness’ of both natives as well as immigrants in Finland.

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India performed poorly in the report, ranking at a measly 133, far behind most SAARC countries, including neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Burundi was announced as the least happy country owing to its rampant poverty and miserable conditions of living. The other countries that make up the top ten include Switzerland, The Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia. Interestingly, the US has never featured among the top ten.

The Nordic countries, including Denmark and Iceland have constituted the top four slots of the yearly report since 2012 in spite of their adverse climatic conditions. These countries are one of the highest tax-payers in the world, but that has been countered with sizeable social security and considerable amounts of personal liberty accorded to the inhabitants, which contributes to the happiness index. It reflects on the governments’ commitment towards the quality of life of their people.

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