Panama, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico are full of people who feel pretty good about life.
The 2014 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being ranking is based on a global survey of about 146,000 people. Respondents are asked about different aspects of how they feel about their lives. Gallup and Healthways combine those into five major dimensions:

• Purpose: Feeling good about what you do and that you can achieve your goals
• Social: Having strong relationships with others
• Financial: Having low economic stress and high economic security
• Community: Liking where you live
• Physical: Having good health

The main ranking is based on the percentage of people in a country who are "thriving" in at least three of those five categories. The Americas were the most overall thriving region in the world in 2014, while China and sub-Saharan Africa did worse in the ranking:

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(Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Gallup-Healthways) Here are the 25 countries that scored the highest in the overall ranking:

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(Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from Gallup-Healthways)

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Utility vehicle and tractor manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra today launched its all-new small commercial vehicle Jeeto from its Zaheerabad plant in Telangana.

Jeeto, priced at Rs 2.32 lakh (ex-showroom, Telangana, BSIII), is the first product in its category with a modular range of 8 mini trucks to cater to the varied needs of the sub-one tonne segment.

Jeeto will available in S, L and X series, catering to mini truck, micro truck and 3-wheeler customers. This new vehicle from M&M will compete against Piaggio Ape Truck and Tata Ace Zip.

The extended facility of M&M's automotive plant was inaugurated yesterday by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Jeeto will be offered with mutiple options, having two powertrains - 11hp and 16hp - two payloads of 600kg and 700kg and three deck lengths. The vehicle delivers fuel efficiency of 37.6 kmpl.

ALSO READ: Mahindra wins million-dollar deal from Airbus
Pawan Goenka, executive director, M&M said, "The Jeeto is poised to redefine the landscape of the small commercial vehicle industry within India and drive positive change by providing customers with a higher earning potential."

A bikini-clad waitress at Daoxianji (CEN)
How exactly do you make porridge sexy?
For most, the answer is to liven up a little fruit and honey. But a restaurant in China has had a different idea.
Daoxianji, which serves Congee – otherwise known as gruel – has decided to get its staff to dress up in beachwear instead.
Every day women in bikinis and men in swimming trunks serve food to customers in the city of Shenyang, capital of north-eastern China’s Liaoning Province.

Male staff also dress in beachwear (CEN)
The staff also have the name of the restaurant – which loosely translates as ‘fresh rice’ – painted onto their bodies at the start of each shift.
Since the move, business has been booming.
The staff of 20 women and 10 men boosted sales so much that they have been rushed off their feet to keep up with demand for bowls of gruel from both male and female customers.

The restaurant specialises in Congee, a rice porridge (CEN)
However, critics say that the decision to dress staff in beachwear sends the wrong message especially to younger customers.
Weibo user Ginsy08 said: “This restaurant’s business is selling food, not swim wear. It is just irresponsible.”
But the restaurant managers insist the move is not sexist as both male and female staff don beachwear to wait tables – although do admit to targetting staff with good looks and nice figures.
Congee is a type of rice porridge popular in many Asian countries. When eaten as plain rice congee, it is most often served with side dishes.

The Shenyang restaurant has seen business soar (CEN)

Alexis Tsipras, the leftist Greek prime minister, made a surprise appearance at the forum’s main event, emerging from the audience in the packed convention center to deliver a speech immediately after Putin.

ST PETERSBURG: The leaders of Russia and Greece produced a grand pageant of solidarity, friendship and supposed economic cooperation at Russia's annual gathering for global business executives Friday, but the embrace seemed mostly about thumbing their noses at Europe.

READ ALSO: Greece says European Central Bank won't let its banks collapse

For President Vladimir V Putin, giving the Greek prime minister a high-profile international platform served to eclipse the issue of the war in eastern Ukraine, which was all anybody could talk about at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum last year.

 

"There was an obsession about Ukraine, headlines all the time — Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine," said Charles Robertson, managing director and global chief economist at Renaissance Capital.

"Now, how many people died in the Donetsk region yesterday? How much shelling was there? Does anyone know?" he asked. "Greece has become the European story, rather than Ukraine and Russia."

READ ALSO: Greek banks bleed, 1bn withdrawn in a day

Alexis Tsipras, the leftist Greek prime minister, made a surprise appearance at the forum's main event, emerging from the audience in the packed convention center to deliver a speech immediately after Putin.

It was a chance for him to bathe in warm applause while he denounced the European Union, to show that he had friends and to try to pressure Brussels to give a little ground in crucial debt talks next week. Yet he received no Russian money and limited investment pledges.

The result was perhaps best summed up by statements from the Kremlin and Tsipras after bilateral talks. They agreed to produce a joint memo about future plans for cooperation — by November. There was no discussion of financial aid, Russia said.

Tsipras recognized the incongruity of appearing in St. Petersburg while the economic fate of his country is uncertain. "Many are asking themselves the question, why am I here?" he said, acknowledging the urgent debt talks in Europe. "Why am I not in Brussels?"

For too long, he said, Europe has thought of itself as the fulcrum of the global economic order, while real weight is shifting to Asia, Russia and elsewhere.

About the closest thing to an actual deal was a memorandum of understanding signed by Greece and Gazprom, the Russian state energy giant, on the construction of a gas pipeline, an extension of one that will carry Russian gas to Europe through Turkey. Russia committed to pay for the pipeline and hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees.

There are myriad bonds uniting the two leaders and their countries. Greece and Russia share the Orthodox Christian faith. Tsipras was a staunch Communist in his youth and has long been critical of the United States. He has opposed the west's economic sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

For months, there has been the tantalizing possibility of a grand bargain that would be a stick in the west's eye: that Greece would provide the one vote needed to block European sanctions in exchange for a financial crutch from the Kremlin.

But the hard reality voiced by leading economic figures in Russia was that it was not about to lend Greece money; that it was not even going to buy Greek bonds; that its businessmen were as reluctant as the rest of the world to get involved in such an economic morass; and that the main question was whether the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, would decide in the crisis talks next week to extend the European Union's lifeline.

At a post-speech session on Greek-Russian economic cooperation, political and business leaders continued to mouth odes to partnership, even noting that the countries shared a love of poetry.

But the numbers present a different story. Because of the western sanctions and Russia's blockade of many food imports from Europe, trade between Greece and Russia dropped 40 percent in 2014 and another 40 percent this year, officials said. Twenty percent fewer Russian tourists flew to Greece because of the collapse of the ruble against the euro.

Dmitry Razorenov, who presented himself as an enthusiastic Russian investor in Dodoni, a major Greek producer of feta and yogurt, provided a reality check. Outside investors are dismayed by the lack of predictability and transparency in the Greek economy, he warned, and are alarmed by the amount of debt companies there carry.

Putin echoed that sentiment. After arguing that Russia's economic problems were receding, he shifted the focus, drawing laughter and applause by noting that the solution to the Greek conundrum lay elsewhere.

The Greek problem, he said, "is not just a problem for Greece, but for all of Europe."

Who: R Seshasayee
What: Appointed as the Non-Executive Chairman of Infosys Limited
When: 5 June 2015

R Seshasayee was on 5 June 2015 appointed as the Non-Executive Chairman of Infosys Limited. He succeeded KV Kamath, who resigned to head the proposed BRICS New Development Bank in China.

Seshasayee will assume his new role with immediate effect. He will lead the Infosys board for three years until 2018, when he will turn 70 and retire, as per company rules.

Seshasayee joined Infosys board in January 2011. He has been an independent director on the board since then and is the Chairperson of its audit committee. Presently, Seshasayee also serves as Non-Executive Vice-Chairman of Ashok Leyland and Chairman of IndusInd Bank.

Breif About Seshasayee => A chartered accountant by profession, Seshasayee started his career with Hindustan Lever Ltd in 1971. Later, he joined Chennai-based auto maker Ashok Leyland in 1976, where he became executive director in 1983 and managing director in 1998.