A majority of the Indians feel Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has a good influence on the nation.
Results for India from the 2002 Global Attitudes Survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press, released on Wednesday, said 84 per cent of the Indians have an unfavourable opinion of Pakistan.
The Global Attitudes Project interviewed 2,189 Indians from September 12 to 21. The questionnaire was administered in five languages or dialects. The error margin is plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
More Indians are dissatisfied (83 per cent) than satisfied (9 per cent) with the way things are going in their nation, the survey said.
Ninety per cent cited terrorism as a very big problem in their country, far more than any other nation except Bangladesh (92 per cent).
Seventy-four per cent said Vajpayee has a good influence on the nation, making him one of the most popular national leaders in the 44 nations surveyed. Just 18 per cent said Vajpayee is a bad influence.
By an overwhelming 85 per cent to two per cent margin Indians said the military's influence on the nation is good. Among citizens of other major nations, only Americans (87 per cent to nine per cent) and Pakistanis (84 per cent to nine per cent) are as favourable toward the armed forces.
The survey said personal contentment is especially low among Indian respondents; just 17 per cent gave a positive assessment of their lives (7 or higher on a scale of 0 to 10), compared with 23 per cent and 25 per cent in China and Pakistan, and more than 50 per cent in North American and Western European nations.
Outside of Africa, only Bangladeshi and Bulgarian respondents were gloomier (14 per cent and 8 per cent respectively).
Also, while Indians rated the current quality of their lives relatively low compared with most other nations, most (57 per cent) said their lives will be better five years from now.
More than half of Indians (52 per cent) said they have lacked money to pay for medical and health care during the past year, and 44 per cent said there have been times when they did not have enough money to buy food their family.
Eighty six per cent of Indians said crime is a very big problem in their nation, and religious conflict is also a major concern (71 per cent).
Fifty per cent said the quality of water for daily use is a very big problem in India, another 19 per cent said it is a moderate problem, and just 15 per cent said there is little or no drinking water problem.
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