India's 'popularity' falls sharply since last year globally, finds poll

Worldwide popularity of India has fallen sharply over the last year, a new poll has found.

This year's annual Country Ratings Poll for the BBC World Service found that India is ranked 12th, with 35 percent of respondents giving it negative views as compared to 34 percent who gave it positive views for the first time.

More than 26,000 people were surveyed and were asked to rate 16 countries and the European Union on whether their influence in the world was 'mainly positive' or 'mainly negative'.

The poll found that China's positive views too have fallen sharply around the world over the last year.

After improving for several years, views of China have sunk to their lowest level since polling began in 2005, putting it in ninth position.

According to the BBC, Germany was rated the most positively viewed nation in the world with 59% rating it positively.

The UK saw a bigger increase in positive ratings than any other country and climbed to third place in the table, in the wake of its hosting of the 2012 Olympics.

The poll was conducted for the BBC by GlobeScan and PIPA, who conducted face-to-face and telephone interviews with randomly selected people, mainly in urban centres, in 25 countries around the globe.

Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and Iran came out worst in terms of how they are viewed globally. Only 15 percent of respondents said they saw Iran as having a mainly positive influence, the report added.