Myanmar Is The World's Most Generous Nation, India ranks The Least In South Asia

In a global report of people who help strangers, donate money or volunteer their time for a good cause, India is the least generous country among eight South Asian nations and ranks a dismal 106th.

The research by London-based Charitable Aid Foundation (CAF) found that Myanmar ranked highest in the world for generosity.

‘India has the largest number of people giving to charity. However, the country with huge number of population had lower proportion of people performing acts of generosity than other countries.’

The United States ranks second, New Zealand third, Canada fourth and Australia fifth. The next five most generous countries were the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Ireland and Malaysia respectively.

The report found that more than 334 million Indians helped a stranger, over 183 million gave money and more than 156 million volunteered their time.

India was found to have the largest number of people giving to charity (184 million) followed by the United States (164 million), Indonesia (121 million) and China (92 million).

"However, while the country's large population means it has a huge number of people performing acts of generosity, the proportion of people who give is lower than in many other countries," Meenakshi Batra, Chief Executive of CAF India, said in a statement.

"The relatively low proportion of people who are giving their time or money shows there is still a lot more we must do," she said.

The CAF study looks at three measures of giving -- the percentage of people who have given to charity, volunteered their time and helped a stranger in the last month.

This year's report found that the proportion of people in India donating to charity in 2014 had fallen to 20 percent - down eight percentage points on 2013.

India ranked as the 106th most generous country overall - just behind Brazil - and the eighth out of eight countries included from Southern Asia.

Nearly 3,000 Indians were interviewed face-to-face between September 7 and October 15, 2014. However, the survey excluded population living in the Northeast states and on remote islands, which represents 10 percent of the population.

Source: Medindia