From our Independence to approximately 2010, the greatest problem with developmental work was that they were discussed and formulated at the National level with inputs from the Districts and States – but without people's participation. This ‘top-down’ approach ignored core local issues and the requirements of the particular area. It also ignored awakening a sense of ownership and initiative in the people involved. As a result, these cost-intensive rural development schemes were unable to achieve their objectives. As Pt. Deendayalji had said, "The process of development begins from the bottom and moves to the top. The roots of our nation lie in rural India. So the development of our society and country must begin from the rural area." People's participation and initiative in rural projects increase their scope, stability and success rate.

The Government, both at the Centre and the States appear to have recognised the problem, and have initiated a dialogue at the grassroots to try and bridge the gap. Although there are still large gaps, and much lacunae, there is progress.

When Deendayal Research Institute (DRI), under the guidance and leadership of Bharat Ratna Rashtrarishi Nanaji Deshmukh, launched the Self-Reliance Campaign in the 512 chosen hamlets around Chitrakoot on 26^th January 2002, there was a need for an integrated and holistic model for the development of rural India. This model, The Chitrakoot Project was based on the principles outlines in Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya's Integral Humanism to create a society based on the complimentarily of the family, primary school and the local population, as the family, and not the individual, is the basic unit in the Bharatiya Sanskriti idea of society. The self-reliance campaign covered all aspects of individual, family and societal life of the villagers, and included poverty alleviation, employment, literacy, health and hygiene, as well as social consciousness, leading to litigation free villages.

Today, the Government has expanded its footprint in the villages. Its Outreach programs, direct benefit transfers and new schemes have had a positive impact on rural communities and livelihoods, though much remains to be done.

Nanaji believed that a part of the Institute’s role was to supplement Government initiatives as well as show the local administration the optimum process in utilising the schemes.

He however believed, that the major thrust of the Institute’s efforts be directed in achieving a paradigm shift in the behavioural pattern and mental outlook of rural populations.

The Government assumes an ability in the rural population to adapt and accept the innovations and interventions designed by them to engineer the change in their lives that Government schemes entitle them to.

However, how to do this? This segment is the most vulnerable and also the most resistant to change. What is lacking is the willingness.

We all talk of Empowerment. What is it? The Left Brain, Right Brain Theory, though somewhat disproved neurologically, holds true in phycological terms. How do we change ‘I cannot’ to ‘I can’. The Institute uses a variety of interventions to change the mindset of farmers, farm women and rural youth, and bring them to believe “I can’.

Deendayal Research Institute, through its innovative Samaj Shilpi Dampatis, and Sahyogi Karyakartas actively works towards changing the mindset if the rural communities they work in with a range of community activities. Most of these are focused on strengthening Community ties and building a Complementarian Society as envisioned by Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, it does not address the issues of ‘Sustainable Production and Sustainable Consumption’, that is now the focus of the Government of India as well as the United Nations with the Sustainable Development Goals.

At the heart of the efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, is the message encapsulated in SDG 12 – ‘Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns” or more succinctly, ‘Sustainable Consumption and Sustainable Production’. Without it, nothing will be achieved. It is at the core of all the 17 Goals, 169 targets and 232 indicators.

The most important point to note, is that Sustainability is in direct contradiction to modern society’s emphasis on maximizing consumption and production with more efficient technologies and the use of GDP as a measure of ‘Development’.

It is a paradox that the countries that have endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals, and in the present context, Goal 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production, look to economies of scale to measure their progress; and their citizens well-being with the most efficient production methods that create more goods and more demand and more consumption, and whose economies are dictated by the economist John Maynard Keynes, who stated in his 1930 essay Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, “For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.”

It is this credo that has driven world macroeconomics for the past century and brought our planet to the brink of a existential disaster.

To step back from the brink and change the current economic model and societal norms on Consumption, a paradigm shift is required in the thought process of each one of us.

Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya’s philosophy of ‘Integral Humanism’ articulated the idea more clearly. Among the numerous quotes on the subject, the clearest was, “It is essential, therefore, to use up that portion of the available natural resources which nature itself will be able to recoup easily. … The industrialist provides for a depreciation fund to replace machines when they are worn out. Then how can we neglect the depreciation fund for nature? From this point of view, it must be realised that the object of our economic system should not be to make extravagant use but a well-regulated use of available resources… It will not be wise, however, to engage in a blind rat-race of consumption and production.. Such a system alone can be called civilisation…This system will not thrive on the exploitation of nature, but will sustain nature, and will in turn itself be nourished. Milking, rather than exploitation, should be our aim. The system should be such that overflow from nature is used to sustain our lives.”

As Dr. Bajranglal Gupta, an eminent economist and founder Chairman of India Policy Foundation, has stated in his article, Beyond Binaries, “There should be a harmony between ethics, economy, ecology, energy and employment, based on the four goals of life: Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Culture and prosperity, good conduct and economic dealings should run in tandem.”

India, as part of the Global Community, and in an era where geopolitical security is tied to economic strength, has been forced to be a part of the Keynesian macroeconomic model, and with the rest of the world, is in danger of destroyed the very Bharat Mata that has sustained it for millennia.

It is now imperative that we as a Nation start to explore an alternate economic model, as ingrained in Bhartiya Sanskriti.  Kautilya in the Arthashastra said, ““The happiness of the subjects is the happiness of the king; their welfare is his. His own pleasure is not his good, but the pleasure of his subjects is his good”.

Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah – Let all be Happy. But can we be happy if are not content? And can we be content if we feel deprived?

Even after we have enough to cover our needs – and for each of us, this is different - we still feel deprived when we do not receive what we feel we should have received. And this feeling of deprivation comes from a variety of external and internal factors. I have mentioned external before internal as external factors influence our feelings. These then turn into internal factors.

 Education today is aspirational. The purpose of the educational system is to make our children a contributory component of an economic expansionist system, where progress in measured solely in terms of GDP, and maximizing consumption and production. Inherent within this, is a sense of deprivation, as achievements rarely match aspirations.

Interpersonal relationships within communities have turned competitive. Neighbours compete to see who has bigger and more. This competitive streak is transmitted from parents to children and now permeates even our poorest communities as WhatsApp reels have changed their definition of needs and contentment.

How do we change this sense of deprivation? We can only change it when we change what influences our feelings. When we change the measure of what makes us content.

It is our premise, that for any hope of an alternate model becoming a universally acceptable proposition, spirituality is the key to its success. It would be necessary to awaken the inherent spirituality that exists within each of us. Spirituality emphasises the oneness on man and nature, and Bhartiya Sanskriti encapsulates the conscious connection between Man and Nature. Man and Water. Man and the Forest. Man and Agriculture. Man and the Environment.

How does one convince an individual and/or community to produce less or consume less? As stated in the Chitrakoot Declaration, the Institute would look to “delve on strategies for a new narrative laying emphasis on family as the fulcrum of solutions in the spirit of ‘Gramodaya se Sarvodaya’ (From Rural Upliftment to Upliftment of All); and from ‘Sarvodaya to Abhyudaya’ (From Upliftment for All to the Rise of All).”

Rural communities, especially forest dwellers, had a connect with nature. As Nanaji said, “Villagers are the custodians of natural resources, and the nation’s wealth.” When forest dwellers used to harvest honey from the forests, they used to cut 3/4^th of the hive and leave 1/4^th for it to regrow. With the lack of knowledge, greater demand, and loss of their core values, they started to cut the branch the hive grows on. Anola was picked at the time the fruit had ripened and the pollination process complete. Today, it is picked prematurely, as the buyers, in their need to capture supply, compromise and purchase premature fruit, causing great environmental damage.

There is also a need to invoke the kind of community spirit that existed in rural communities pre the destruction of the Panchayat, where the concepts of sustainable production and sustainable consumption were part of the fabric of the community, and complementarity its hallmark. (Jeevanshaili, Rutucharya, and Dincharya.)

Lifestyles for Environment or LiFE, the initiative proposed by our Hon. Prime Minister at COP 26 in Glasgow on the 1^st of November 2021 hopes to help achieve this. LiFE puts individual and collective duty on everyone to live a life that is in tune with Planet Earth and does not harm it. Those who practice such a lifestyle are recognised as Pro Planet People under LiFE.

The effects of a spiritual lifestyle have been studied in Bhutan and are articulated in its Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index, that measures 33 indicators across 9 domains. However, the GHN Index is a measure of a nation that has maintained its spirituality and harmonious lifestyles as part of a Government mandate. His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck introduced the idea of Gross National Happiness in 1972, and it was enshrined in the Bhutan's 2008 Democratic Constitution, “The State shall strive to promote conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness.”

The Institute is trying to consciously moves beyond the language of “sustainability” and the SDGs, which largely seeks to repair a fundamentally broken, extractive economic model rather than replace it, and therefore remains trapped in the same growth‑centric paradigm it claims to correct.

It is looking to create a model that is measurable, sustainable and replicable where, with innovative interventions, a village community can be helped to move the needle, and shift behaviour patterns towards a sustainable lifestyle where individual and community goals would include happiness and fulfilment. It would be measured through SHINE: Sustainability and Happiness Index for a New Era.

The model would aspire to embody the principles of ‘regenerative economics’: economies designed as living systems that restore soil, water, forests, community relationships and cultural vitality, instead of merely minimising harm. This shift resonates deeply with Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism, which calls for a holistic, dharma‑anchored order harmonising ethics, economy, ecology, energy and employment, and insists on “milking rather than exploiting” nature through well‑regulated use of resources. By rooting village‑level planning in Integral Humanism and aligning it with regenerative economic principles, the model seeks to prototype a practical, measurable and replicable alternative to the dominant global development model, starting from Gramodaya se Sarvodaya and moving towards Abhyudaya.

The model, in partnership with Jan Abhiyan Parishad, Madhya Pradesh,, Rajya Anand Sansthan, Madhya Pradesh, NITI Aayog, and the Centre for Complexity Economics, Applied Spirituality and Public Policy, Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, Sonepat is proposed to be conducted in 108 revenue villages in the Chitrakoot Project area, and would start with a baseline survey, that would measure all social, economic, and spiritual indicators, and would also gather data on consumption, waste and social harmony.

It would look at interventions taken from its Self-Reliance Campaign, the Prime Minister’s LiFE strategies, the Rajya Anand Sansthan program, the inputs from the Centre for Complexity Economics, Applied Spirituality and Public Policy, Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, as well as Bhutan’s National Happiness program, to examine if certain interventions within the community can bring measurable behavioural changes in the families, and measure them through SHINE.

SHINE measurements and outcome are to be defined and documented as per the ISO management systems being formulated with DNV-GL to conform to ISO 9001:2015 standards.

The outcomes that would be looked for include:

1. Nature based solutions
2. Regenerative economics
3. Happiness.
4. Peace of mind.
5. Social Harmony and complementarity.
6. Healthy individuals.
7. Reduction in Individual wants and Individual waste.
8. Clean & Green.
9. Reduction in Carbon Emissions.
10. Reduction in Community waste.
11. Segregate/Recycle waste, individually and as a community.
12. Yoga, Ayurveda and Naturopathy as primary health option.
13. Community composting.
14. Plant trees.
15. Development of lands and resources for community use, including common orchards for fruits and superfoods for nutrition in keeping with ‘food as medicine’.
16. Incorporate Panch Mahabhoot.
17. Incorporate the 3 R’s. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
18. Har Khet par Med. Har Med par Ped.

ANNEXURE I

Interventions of the Samaj Shilpi Dampati and Sahyogi Karyakartas include but are not limited to:

1. Establishment of Gramodaya Nidhi
2. Garbhasth Sishu Sanskar
3. Kishori Sangoshthi
4. Mahila Sangoshthi
5. Healthy Child Competition
6. De Addiction Program
7. Malnutrition
8. Awareness for Safe drinking water
9. Kitchen Garden
10. Vidyarambh Sanskar (New School Admissions)
11. Bal Sanskar Kendra
12. Bal Shivir (Sankul)
13. Selection of Balmitra/Kishori Didi /Paryaavaran Mitra
14. Extra Classes
15. Neat & Clean Home Competition
16. Plantation of Multipurpose trees
17. Wall Writing
18. Panchvati Plantation
19. No new registration of cases
20. Mangal Milan (Men, Women)
21. Cultural , religious and national festival 
22. Motivation Program For Neet & Clean Public Places
23. Shradha Parve
24. Kalash Yatra 
25. Collective Participation on Happy and sorrow moments
26. Organize sports competitions

ANNEXURE II

Official list of the 75 individual LiFE actions from Mission LiFE as released by the Government of India.

Energy Saved:

1. Use LED bulbs/tube-lights.

2. Use public transport wherever possible.

3. Take the stairs instead of an elevator wherever possible.

4. Switch off vehicle engines at red lights and railway crossings.

5. Use bicycles for local or short commutes.

6. Switch off irrigation pumps after use.

7. Prefer CNG/EV vehicle over petrol/diesel vehicles.

8. Use carpooling with friends and colleagues.

9. Drive in the correct gear; keep your foot off the clutch when not changing gears.

10. Install a solar water or solar cooker heater on rooftops.

11. Switch off appliances from plug points when not in use.

12. Use biogas for cooking and electricity needs.

13. Keep temperature of air conditioners at 24°C.

14. Prefer pressure cookers over other cookware.

15. Keep electronic devices in energy-saving mode.

16. Use smart switches for appliances used frequently.

17. Install community earthen pots for cooling water.

18. Defrost fridge or freezer regularly.

19. Run outdoors instead of on a treadmill.

Water Saved

20. Adopt cultivation of less water-intensive crops like millets.

21. Participate in recharge of rural water bodies through Amrit Sarovar Scheme.

22. Practice crop diversification—move from rice and wheat cultivation to pulse and oilseed cropping systems.

23. Use efficient water saving technologies (e.g., micro-irrigation, bunding, farm ponds, zero tillage, direct seeded rice, alternate wetting and drying).

24. Create rainwater harvesting infrastructure at home/school/office.

25. Use drip irrigation systems with waste materials where possible.

26. Reuse water from washed vegetables for plants or other purposes.

27. Pre-soak heavy pots and pans before washing them.

28. Do not discard unused stored water every time there is fresh water coming in taps.

29. Use buckets instead of hose pipes to water plants/floors/vehicles.

30. Fix leaks in flushes, taps and water pipes.

31. Use water-efficient fixtures for taps, showerheads, and toilet flush units.

32. Invest in a water meter for your house to measure water consumption regularly.

33. Reuse water drained from AC/RO for cleaning utensils, watering plants, etc.

34. Prefer a water purification system that wastes less water.

Single Use Plastic Reduced

35. Use cloth bag for shopping instead of plastic bags.

36. Carry your own water bottle wherever possible.

37. Reuse glass containers/packaging plastic items as storage boxes.

38. Participate in and mobilize clean-up drives of cities and water bodies.

39. Prefer non-plastic eco-friendly cutlery during gatherings and events.

40. Turn off running taps when not in active use.

41. Use menstrual cups instead of sanitary napkins.

42. Use recycled plastic over virgin plastic, wherever possible.

43. Use steel/recyclable plastic lunch boxes and water bottles.

44. Cut packaging bags (milk, buttermilk, etc.) only partially to avoid plastic bits mixing into biodegradable waste.

45. Opt for bamboo toothbrushes and neem combs.

Sustainable Food Systems Adopted

46. Include millets in diets through Anganwadi, Mid-Day meal, and public distribution schemes.

47. Compost food waste at home.

48. Create kitchen gardens/terrace gardens at home, school, office.

49. Prepare organic manure from cow dung and apply to farms.

50. Prefer locally available and seasonal foods.

51. Use smaller plates for daily meals to save food wastage.

Waste Reduced (Swachhata Actions)

52. Contribute cattle waste, food waste, and agricultural waste to biogas plants.

53. Practice segregation of dry and wet waste at home.

54. Use agricultural residue, animal waste for composting, manuring, and mulching.

55. Recycle and reuse old newspapers, magazines.

56. Feed unused and uncooked vegetables/leftovers to cattle.

57. Set printer default to double-side printing.

58. Repair, reuse, and recycle old furniture.

59. Buy paper products made from recycled paper.

60. Donate old clothes and books.

61. Do not discard waste in water bodies and public spaces.

62. Do not let pets defecate in public places.

Healthy Lifestyles Adopted

63. Encourage use of millets and indigenous herbs/medicinal plants for nutrition and well-being.

64. Prefer natural or organic products.

65. Start biodiversity conservation at community level.

66. Plant medicinal plants (neem, tulsi, giloy, mint, curry leaves, ashwagandha, etc.) in household premises.

67. Practice natural or organic farming.

68. Plant trees to reduce the impact of pollution.

69. Avoid purchase of products made from the skin, tusks, or fur of wild animals.

70. Volunteer at community food and cloth banks or animal shelters.

71. Initiate/join green clubs in residential area, school, or office.

E-Waste Reduced

72. Repair and use electronic devices rather than discarding them.

73. Discard gadgets in the nearest e-recycling units.

74. Use rechargeable lithium cells.

75. Prefer cloud storage over pen drives/hard drives.

ANNEXURE III

Concept of Anand Gram (Happy Village)

The conception of Anand Gram is based on the following six points:

Goals: What goals does Anand Gram aim to achieve?

Plans: What proposed plans will help achieve these goals?

Programs: What programs will be conducted under these plans?

Implementation: How will these be implemented in a time-bound manner?

Evaluation: On what basis will the programs be evaluated from time to time?

Conclusions: What conclusions do we wish to reach through the Anand Gram program?

Goals of Anand Gram

The Key goal for Anand Gram is Co-existence (mutual complementarity) in nature/existence.

Plans

To realize this goal, a five-level program is proposed:

1. Education and Values Plan: Ensures correct understanding and feelings, leading to happiness. Human education and values instil correct understanding and feelings (happiness), which is the first goal of the human order and must reach every individual.

2. Health and Moderation Plan: Ensures physical health. This helps identify what physical facilities are necessary for the nourishment, protection, and proper use of the body, forming the basis for prosperity. It also ensures coexistence with nature.

3. Production and Work Plan: Ensures prosperity. Production aimed at more than just fulfilling needs ensures prosperity. If carried out cyclically and with mutual complementarity, it contributes to coexistence (the fourth human goal).

4. Justice and Security Plan: Ensures fearlessness and coexistence. Justice pertains to human relationships and, if understood and practiced, leads to mutual happiness and societal trust (fearlessness).

5. Exchange and Reserve Plan: Ensures prosperity and fearlessness. Exchange and pooling done with a sense of complementarity, instead of exploitation, assure family prosperity and social trust.

Education and Values Plan:

The objective is to develop correct understanding for living at all levels (individual, family, society, and nature/existence).

Values mean developing core acceptances for living at these various levels.

Programs such as workshops at the village level can help both current and former students, fostering understanding at all levels and correct feelings within oneself.

Training on awareness for health, production, distribution, and exchange is also included.

Health and Moderation Plan:

Moderation means the sense of responsibility in “self” for nourishment, protection, and proper use of the body.

Physical health is indicated by the body’s ability to act as directed by the self with all its organs in order.

The focus is not on restriction but rather recognition of responsibility for body nourishment, protection, and proper use.

Social systems supporting these efforts, including family systems, are discussed, as well as the importance of home remedies and community participation.

Most lifestyle diseases (about 80%) can be prevented at the individual, family, or school level; about 10% can be managed by home remedies; only a small percentage require medical intervention.

Production and Work Plan:

Work is the labour exerted by humans on the rest of nature.

Production is the physical facility gained from such work.

For production to be sustainable and environmentally and human-friendly, it must be:

1. Cyclical
2. Mutually complementary
3. Ensure justice among humans

Categories of productive activity:

Primary production: facilities for body nourishment, protection, and proper use (food, clothing, shelter, etc.)

Secondary production: facilities that aid primary production (machinery, construction materials, etc.)

Tertiary production: facilities aiding services and human contact (trains, TVs, mobiles, etc.)

Service sector: services supporting all the above, such as repairs, software development

Focus should initially be on primary production and the service sector at the village level.

Justice and Security Plan:

Justice means identifying, fulfilling, and evaluating human-human relationships, resulting in mutual happiness.

The justice system must foster competence in understanding and living by justice.

Security addresses human-nature relationships, ensuring prosperity and the preservation, protection, and proper use of nature.

Programs at the village level need to develop the ability to live justly and handle any gaps systematically.

Exchange and Reserve Plan:

Exchange means sharing or trading facilities with a sense of complementarity.

Reserves mean pooling facilities not for profit or exploitation but for mutual benefit.

Local discussions and measures need to support such systems as per village needs.

Expanding the Plans:

By building from family order to world family order (Universal Human Order), each individual’s meaningful participation expands from the family to the group, village, region, nation, and finally to a global family system.

Program and Implementation:

The document outlines step-wise yearly strategies to ensure the spread and effectiveness of these programs in each village, covering:

Selection and training of village teams

Planning and conducting workshops

Regular meetings and reviews

Evaluating progress at annual events

Reaching successively wider sections of the village population in each year

By the fifth to tenth year, a structured path to a sustainable, harmonious, and prosperous village community is envisioned.

Evaluation:

Evaluation criteria for each plan include:

Correct understanding at all levels

Correct feelings for harmonious living

Proper skills for prosperity, such as recognizing needs, adopting cyclical production, and nurturing the spirit of abundance

Year-wise expected outcomes are summarized, focusing each year on relationship-building, team development, workshops, responsibility in health, and security over a planned decade.

ANNEXURE IV

Inputs from the Centre for Complexity Economics, Applied Spirituality and Public Policy, Jindal School of Government and Public Policy:

Spirituality: 

1. Humans are inherently spiritual although most , through conditioning think of themselves as the mind body entity limited to the physical and psychological planes. 

2. So, they think of themselves as a separate entity or self aka the ego. 

3 . They see themselves as separate from one another ( resulting in competition and conflict) and from nature resulting in extractive economies and over exploitation of natural resources. 

4. They confuse wants with needs indeed the former is converted into the latter. 

5. Recognizing your spirituality and being guided by is about realizing that you are “ spirit” at your core; you can also use words like pure consciousness or pure awareness. This is your “empty” or non-material nature. 

We have a shared cosmic consciousness with all humans and with nature . Knowing this is experientially ( more than intellectually) is spiritual. 

This realization leads to a life of reduced insecurity and fear and from that a range of observable behaviours: joy, love, compassion, brotherhood , non-violence, kinship with nature, love of silence, etc . 

Now these features might be present in one’s outlook to life as taught or learned behaviours but operate at a superficial level without a realization of one’s true nature. That will not be the same as “ spiritual “ . 

Hence spirituality might also be called Self Realization. The knowledge of what you truly are and the behaviours that flow from this. 

Sustainable Livelihoods ( or Self Reliance) : 

Livelihoods are the activities ( jobs or small businesses or both); the assets ( human, social, natural, and produced capital ( physical and economic). 

For livelihoods to be sustainable they must be economically effective, socially equitable, ecologically sound and have the capacity to recover from shocks and stresses and in so doing become more resilient to future shocks and stresses.

In working with villagers, they first define their vision of a more sustainable livelihood, building on the assets they have, what they can do on their own and only then what is needed from outside actors. As such they produce the indicators of self-reliance.

Spirituality can then be easily merged with sustainable livelihoods ( self-reliance) conceptually and a simple survey instrument developed to measure them. If these make sense tom the team, then together we can quickly develop a few questions to add to add to your existing survey to strengthen it ( or if you prefer to replace it.  

ANNEXURE V

The Bhutan Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index uses 34 indicators, each with a defined "sufficiency cutoff" that must be met for a person to be considered sufficient in that indicator. It is calculated using the Alkire-Foster method, focusing on sufficiency thresholds within each indicator. Individuals are evaluated across all 33 indicators. Anyone achieving sufficiency in at least six of the nine domains (or 66% of the weighted indicators) is classified as “happy.”

Below is a structured list of the 33 indicators and typical sufficiency cutoffs, grouped by the nine GNH domains:

I. Psychological Well-being:

1. Life satisfaction: Rate as satisfied or very satisfied.

2. Positive emotions: Regular experience of positive feelings.

3. Negative emotions: Rare experience of negative feelings.

4. Spirituality: Engages in spiritual activities weekly.

II. Health:

5. Self-reported health: Reports good or excellent health.

6. Healthy days: Minimum of 26 healthy days per month.

7. Disability: No long-term disabling condition.

8. Mental health: Normal score on General Health Questionnaire.

III Time Use:

9. Sleep: At least eight hours per day.

10. Work-life balance: Sufficient time for both work and leisure.

IV. Education:

11. Literacy: Can read and write in any language.

12. Schooling: Minimum years of formal education.

13. Knowledge: General understanding of social, health, and political matters.

14. Value education: Participation in non-formal education, including value-based sessions.

V. Cultural Diversity and Resilience:

15. Speak native language: Proficiency in native language.

16. Cultural participation: Engages in cultural festivals and ceremonies.

17. Artisan skills: Knowledge or practice of traditional crafts.

18. Driglam Namzha: Observance of Bhutanese code of etiquette.

VI. Good Governance:

19. Political participation: Participation in elections and decision-making.

20. Services: Satisfaction with essential public services.

21. Government performance: Positive perception of government efforts.

22. Fundamental rights: Feels basic rights are protected.

VII. Community Vitality:

23. Donations: Donates time or resources for community well-being.

24. Safety: Feels safe in the community.

25. Family relationship: Strong family cohesion.

26. Neighbour relationship: Connectedness with neighbours.

27. Community relationship: Active in community life.

VIII. Ecological Diversity and Resilience:

28. Environmental responsibility: Practices sustainable habits (waste management, tree planting).

29. Ecological issues: Awareness of environmental challenges.

30. Wildlife damage: No significant loss or threat from wildlife.

31. Urban greenery: Access to green spaces in urban areas.

IX. Living Standards:

32. Income: Income above sufficiency threshold.

33. Assets: Ownership of key assets (radio, TV, vehicle, etc.).

34. Housing: House meets basic standard for durability and comfort.

Typical Sufficiency Cutoffs

A person is considered ‘happy’ or to have ‘sufficiency’ if they achieve sufficiency in two ways:

1. They have sufficient achievements in at least 66% of the weighted indicators (which typically is equivalent to achieving sufficiency in 6 out of 9 domains).
2. Sufficiency for each indicator is precisely defined (e.g., a minimum level of education, certain income threshold, or hours of sleep). For living standard, for example, the sufficiency cutoff for income is often set at 1.5 times the national poverty line.

The GNH Index also categorizes individuals based on sufficiency:

1. Deeply Happy: Sufficiency in 77% or more of weighted indicators (about 7 of 9 domains)
2. Extensively Happy: 66-76%
3. Narrowly Happy: 50-65%
4. Unhappy: Less than 50%