Narendra Modi in eighth place for Time magazine's Person of the Year Poll

Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently among the top 10 people in the Time Person of the Year readers’ choice poll, in the company of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and Pope Francis. [caption id=“attachment_2527366” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Narendra Modi. Reuters[/caption] Although Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (10.5 percent) continues to lead the poll, Modi with a vote share of 2.7 percent was in the eighth place as of Monday evening, while Pakistani activist Malala (5.9 percent) was in second place and Pope Francis (3.9 percent) in third. Modi, according to the Time profile, “has encouraged foreign direct investment in India and is trying to modernise the world’s largest democracy… He has also faced controversy over what some see as right-wing extremism”. Google’s Indian-American CEO Sundar Pichai is currently in the 25th place with a vote share of 1.5 percent. With global figures taking five of the top ten spots in the final week of voting, US President Barack Obama (3.5 percent) was in the fourth place, ‘refugees’ were in fifth and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 10th place. In recent years, international leaders have been named most influential by the magazine. The Pope was Time’s Person of the Year in 2013, and before that Russian President Vladimir Putin was chosen as Person of the Year in 2007. Time’s editors will choose the Person of the Year, the person Time believes has most influenced the news this year for better or worse. It may well differ from the reader’s choice. IANS