Narendra Modi, Amitabh Bachchan Lead Indians in World’s Most Admired List

Amitabh Bachchan Supporting BJP’s Swachh Bharat Project
Amitabh Bachchan Supporting BJP’s Swachh Bharat Project

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and leading Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan feature at the top in the list of world’s most admired people for 2018.

The new YouGov’s annual study has covered the views of people in 35 countries where it had interviewed more than 37,000 people to compile the list.

While Modi comes at No. 8, Bachchan is just a notch lower in the global list for men. In the women’s list, Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, and Deepika Podukone are among the Indians that appear among the top 20 popular women of the world.

According to the YouGov study, Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie are once again the world’s most admired man and woman.

[ How Amitabh Bachchan Stays Younger Than the Young ]

Entertainers dominate the female top 20, with 14 of the most admired women being actresses, singers or TV presenters, although some, like Emma Watson and Angelina Jolie, are also notable for their humanitarian work.

By contrast, the list of most admired men contains more people from political, business and sporting backgrounds.

Former US presidential couple Barack Obama and Michelle Obama occupy the two second place spots, representing a three-position rise for Michelle and no change for Barack.

[ Twitter Followers: Barack Obama = 100 Million, Donald Trump = Only 48 Million ]

The 44th American president is 15 places higher than the man that replaced him – with Donald Trump going up one place since the last study.

The results are calculated from the combination of responses to two questions – whether a respondent admires the figure at all and then whether they are the figure the respondent admires the most. Each nation’s results in the global compilation are also weighted to represent the country’s population size.

World’s most admired 2018
World’s most admired 2018

According to the YouGov study, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Chinese actor Jackie Chan have swapped places since 2016, with Chan now occupying the third place spot and Jinping in fourth.

This is a result of Jackie Chan’s more universally favourable international profile: while Xi Jinping is by far the most admired man in China, Chan’s global reach is just enough to push him above the premier.

American TV host Oprah Winfrey moves up one position to be the third most admired woman in the world, leapfrogging Queen Elizabeth II and Hillary Clinton who have fallen to fourth and fifth place respectively.

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Rakesh Raman