International Happiness Day created

Moscow, June 29 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Enjoying life finally has a place on the world's calendar now, as the UN General Assembly has passed a resolution appointing March 20 as the International Happiness Day.

Not a single member of the 193 UN members objected to the idea, the UN website reported.

The proposal was motivated by "the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promoted sustainable development and poverty eradication, and the happiness and well-being of all people," the resolution said.

This is not the first time that the UN has turned to the elusive concept. In 2011, it passed another resolution on the matter calling member states to pay more attention to making their populaces happier.

The date for the celebrations is March 20, an equinox day when day and night are of equal length. It is also Nowruz, or "Iranian New Year," and World Sparrow Day.

International Happiness Day was pitched by Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom that has been running a Gross National Happiness index since the 1970s.

The Bhutanese index is based on factors such as psychological well being, health, education, environment, governance quality and living standards of the populace.

The economics of happiness became a legitimate field of academic research in the late 20th century, and various happiness indexes abound.

One of the most prominent is Gallup's Global Barometer On Happiness, the 2011 edition of which showed 31 percent of Russians were happy, well below the global average of 40 percent, not to mention the leader, Fiji, where 85 percent of the populace was happy.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

sd