For a while now, the economic progress of a country has been based on factors like gross domestic product(GDP), gross national product(GNP), and national income, etc. These mainly talk about values of commodities produced and income earned but do not take every single transaction into account and nor do they take welfare and happiness into account. These are very ambiguous and cursory indicators which give readers a broad idea of the nation's 'performance'. USA has one of the higher GDPs in the world but there are shootings and racism and such problems there. Hence there is no direct relation between happiness and income. This is Easterlin's paradox. He was an economist who said that even the accumulation of wealth doesn't increase overall happiness as individuals get used to that state and revert to their earlier happiness state. In short, happiness does not increase if income goes above subsistence income. Indicators like the happy planet index (HPI) which is a summary of various indicators, the human development index (HDI), and gross national happiness(GNH) should be more widely used. Happiness of a nation is more important than its income levels. Money truly does not buy happiness. In India, the economy is progressing, but we have a lot of backward customs and traditions and backward thinking which can serve as an impediment to progress. Our capital, Delhi, is the world's most polluted city. Industries increasing production at the cost of the environment cannot be deemed successful. Some sort of adjusting factor has to be introduced to adjust for environmental degradation as well.
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