India Leads World In Suffering: Gallup Poll

"Now New Delhi is trying a different strategy to improve the wellbeing of its people. It just passed the Right to Food Act to provide food at subsidized rates to 71 percent of its population," it said.

Comparing average suffering for 2006-2008 with the average for 2010-2012, suffering increased by three percentage points worldwide, according to the Gallup poll.

South Asia clearly registers the biggest increase in suffering during this period and because of its large population, it is mostly responsible for the worldwide uptick.

Suffering in the region has increased enormously since the beginning of the global financial and economic crisis, averaging 12 percent between 2006 and 2008, and 22 percent between 2010 and 2012.

Latin America and the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa defy the global trend. Between 2010 and 2012, residents of both regions were on average less likely to be suffering than they were before the outbreak of the global economic crisis, Gallup said.

Resource-oriented, emerging-market economies in both regions largely managed to avoid the recession that plagued more mature economies in Northern America and Europe.

Gallup classified respondents as "thriving," "struggling," or "suffering" according to how they rate their current and future lives on a scale of 0-10 with those rating their current lives a 4 or lower and their lives in five years a 4 or lower considered "suffering."

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