Shillong, Sept 20: Taking a leave out of Bhutan’s fourth king Jigme Singye Wangchuck famous Gross National Happiness (GNH) index to measure progress, union minister of state Agatha Kongal Sangma felt India should also adopt this mantra as balancing act to measure social progress.
Speaking at the two-day conference to observe the International Day of Peace in the city, the junior Sangma said countries like Bhutan and UK have used the GNH as a barometer to measure social progress which India should also follow.
Sangma felt adoption of the happiness index would ensure that
citizens live a more balanced life and that they find contentment in
things that they do rather than the Gross National Product.
Sangma said, “There is a need to inculcate our youth a sense of contentment to get rid of the various social ills and imbalances” as she felt the reasons for violence and various social ills in the modern society was because there was so much imbalances socially.
She observed that there are people with “too much” while there are those who have nothing at all. There should be a mechanism to see that wealth is equally distributed among all,” she felt.
Ruing that there should be a change in our education system, Sangma said, “Modern education gives us access to good job materially but do not teach us to find contentment in all things that we do.”
Appealing to the various ethnic groups in the north east to continue to
live in peace, Sangma quoted Gandhi’s famous quote “Live simply so that others may simply live.”- By Our Reporter
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