Suffering in India increased in recent years: Poll

The past several years have seen suffering, increase globally and nowhere more than in South Asia, largely due to negative developments in India, a new Gallup poll said.

The poll said yesterday that one in seven adults worldwide rated their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering in 2012.

South Asia saw the worst suffering at 24 per cent, followed by 21 per cent in the Balkans and the Middle East and North Africa.

Attributing the stepped up increase in South Asia "to negative developments in India" Gallup said, average suffering in India more than doubled between 2006 to 2008 and 2010 to 2012 and in 2012, a full quarter of Indians were suffering.

The increase in suffering in India could be traced to the country's disappointing economic performance, it said.

India's growth rate has now plummeted from 9.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2010 to 4.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2013, the worst quarterly rate since 2002, it noted.

"The Indian government's failure to cut graft and red tape, as well as to liberalise its markets for labour, energy, and land, explains why the World Bank continues to rank the country as a bad place to do business," Gallup said.

The report said, suffering in India had

more than doubled in recent years with one in every four Indian reported to be bearing the brunt of the nation's poor economic performance in recent years.

Neighbouring Nepal had equally badly according to the report, which added, average suffering there had risen 17 percentage points between 2006-2008 and 2010-2012.

''Yet because of its relatively small population, the increase in suffering had a negligible effect on the regional average. Since Nepal abolished the monarchy five years ago, the country has been mired in a political crisis that has paralysed the economy,'' it said.