Indian of the year: M S Dhoni

[Desi Cartman]

I assume that Indians are lacking real heros so they had to vote for the likes of MSD, SRK and Sonia Gandhi ! http://cricket.indiatimes.com/Indian_of_the_year_M_S_Dhoni/articleshow/2661224.cms The contest for Indian of the Year has in the past often been a one-horse race with Amitabh Bachchan winning it year after year. But 2007 has thrown up more than a few surprises. It's just been that kind of year. So, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, at 26, is the new kid on the block. The race was as keen as it gets. In a poll done exclusively for TOI by market research agency Synovate India, the top 10 contenders were all bunched closely together. Just how close can be gauged from the fact that Dhoni got 10.7% of the votes and the person who finished 10th got 4%. That's barely seven percentage points separating nine ranks. Behind Dhoni in second spot was a man who has scripted one of the greatest comeback stories of all time - Sourav Ganguly, with just over 9% of the vote (9.1%). Congress chief Sonia Gandhi followed close behind with 8.7%. The poll covered eight of India's biggest cities - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune. It asked respondents to pick the person of the year in five separate categories - sports, entertainment, business, NRI/PIO and politics/public service - from shortlists of 10 each. They were then asked to pick one of the 50 nominees as Indian of the Year. The responses from the cities were then weighted according to the actual populations of these urban agglomerations, so that the final result genuinely reflects the collective opinion of all these cities. The format threw up some interesting results. The Big B, for instance, lost out to Shah Rukh Khan in the entertainment category. Yet, when it came to voting for Indian of the Year, Amitabh was sixth with 6.5% while the king Khan was two ranks below him at No. 8. Clearly, the number of Amitabh's fans who see him as more than just an entertainer outnumbers those who look at Shah Rukh in a similar light. A similar pattern was visible in the sports category too, where Yuvraj Singh was ahead of Ganguly, but lost out in the race for the big prize to finish fourth, behind Sonia. Again, Manmohan Singh was second to Sonia in the politician of the year section and Narendra Modi was third. But in the bigger race, Modi finished fifth while the PM came in at seventh. The top eight slots confirm that India remains a country in which cricketers, film personalities and politicians are bigger stars than those from other fields. Rounding off the top 10 were Mukesh Ambani, who also won his category of businessperson of the year and astronaut Sunita Williams, who finished tops among non-resident Indians and persons of Indian origin. Interestingly, the next five ranks - numbers 11 to 15 - all went to businessmen with Ratan Tata leading the pack. Six out of the top 15 ranks going to businessmen suggests that we could be seeing the beginning of a trend here. Is urban India waking up to the fact that there is more to life than cricket, showbiz and the great political theatre? TOI-Synovate poll M S Dhoni 10.7% - Sourav Ganguly 9.1% - Sonia Gandhi 8.7% -- for what ?:finger: Yuvraj Singh 8.4% -- cuz he hit 6 sixes ???:omg: Narendra Modi 7.2%

[Guest dada_rocks]

Gujaraat's 5.5 crore janta is indian of the year