In what corroborates the growing popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and strongly confirms his position as a leader who enjoys an unparalleled position in the country, PM Modi has emerged as one of the most admired people in the world. PM Modi has been ranked as the sixth most admired person on the planet. He has left behind some highly popular personalities like Pope Francis, American ace investor Warren Buffett, Russian President Valdamir Putin and US president Donald Trump. Celebrated footballers Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were also left behind by PM Modi.
Prime Minister Modi has also emerged as the most admired Indian person. He has been ranked above cricketing icons, MS Dhoni (who has emerged as the second most admired Indian) and Sachin Tendulkar. Business tycoon, Ratan Tata and Bollywood actors- Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone have also been ranked below PM Narendra Modi.
The rankings are based upon by a UK-based research and data firm YouGov. The firm gathered nominations for the list of most admired persons across the world from panelists across 41 countries. Bill Gates has retained his position as the most admired man in the world while Narendra Modi featured at number six on the list. The former US First Lady, Michelle Obama has dislodged Hollywood icon Angelina Jolie as the most admired woman in the world. Angelina Jolie has fallen to the third rank as far as most admired women in the world are concerned. The firm said, “The US actress, filmmaker and humanitarian has fallen from first place last year to third place this year, with US talk show and philanthropist host Oprah Winfrey coming second in the 2019 list.”
It must be noted that PM Modi started enjoying considerable global standing quite early into his first tenure as the Prime Minister of India. In 2015 itself, PM Modi was ranked as the tenth most admired person globally in a survey conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF). At that time Pope Francis had emerged as the second most admired personality in the world. Speaking about him, the WEF had said, “Pope Francis is the first Latin American and non-European pope in more than 1,200 years. As the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he is the moral and spiritual leader of 1.2 billion people all over the world from the Philippines, where 86 per cent of the population identify as Roman Catholic, to Brazil, which has over 125 million Catholics.” However, the manner in which PM Modi has emerged as a more admired leader than Pope Francis in a period of four years goes on to show that PM Modi’s stature has risen consistently as a global leader. He has earlier also been ranked as the ninth most powerful person in the world in Forbes World’s most powerful people list.