Displace negativity to check violence against women: Prez

Citing abundance of negative feeling in society, President Pranab Mukherjee today asked people to inculcate positive emotions to check incidents of violence against women and road rage.
In his new year message to students and youth on the topic of "Building a happy society" through video conferencing, Mukherjee said India was among the fastest growing major economies of the world but rank at the 117th position out of the 158 countries in the World Happiness Report.
"Happiness is equally the outcome of non-economic and economic parameters. The quest for happiness is closely tied to the quest for sustainable development, which is the combination of human well-being, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

"The focus has to be on eliminating poverty, ensuring environmental sustainability, working towards social inclusion, and providing good governance to achieve the goals of sustainable development. Eradication of poverty would provide a strong boost to happiness," he said.
Mukherjee said unhappiness is associated with anger, sadness, worry, depression, stress and pain.
"We see abundance of such negative feelings around us. Incidents of violence against women, road rage, substance abuse, and suicides are all manifestations of this unhappiness. This has to be dealt with by inculcating positive emotions and by displacing negative emotions. Seek help if you need it. Practice yoga and meditation.

"Every person suffers from negative feelings associated with unhappiness some time or the other in their lives. The success lies in decreasing the occurrence of such feelings by increasing the strength of positive feelings associated with happiness," the President said.

A sustainable environment would prevent irreparable harm to the planetary resources and to future generations. Social inclusion would ensure access to the fruits of progress to all, he said.
Mukherjee said country's educational institutes, the temples of learning, must create waves of happy human beings, who will build a happy India.
"Only those who are happy can spread happiness. Youth comprises more than 65 per cent of India's total population. If we have happy youth, they can work towards happiness in the society," the President said.