India scores high on Happy Planet Index

LONDON: India has scored high on the ' Happy Planet Index', an interesting light-coded map of 151 countries which ranks nations on life indicators rather than wealth and highlights their disparities in the levels of contentment.

Countries like Costa Rica, Colombia and Vietnam were ranked among the happiest countries to live in followed closely by India in a global measure of sustainable well-being for 151 countries around the world.

A map was compiled by the relocation website Movehub using data from the latest Happy Planet Index ( HPI) marking countries along a traffic light basis.

Green marks the most happy countries to live in, followed by amber and then red.

India fell into the green zone for its high scores on "experienced well being".

Although the UK lags far behind, it's placed higher than other European countries like Germany, France and Spain.

The US is ranked way below in red. The three measures used include life expectancy, environmental factors, and happiness.

Happiness is gauged by a Gallup measure called the Ladder of Life, where respondents are told there are 10 steps - from the best life possible, to the worst and to imagine which one they stand on.

The poll was conducted by researchers asking people in each country how they felt as well as measuring environmental and health factors.

The HPI is an index of human well-being and environmental impact that was introduced by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) in July 2006. The index is weighted to give progressively higher scores to nations with lower ecological footprints.