Worry warts

The economy is growing at 8 per cent, but that's obviously not good enough. About 49 per cent Indians "" 10 percentage points more than the November 2005 survey "" are staying up nights worrying about it.

And they are fretting a little more about job security (33 per cent, up from 31 per cent) and political stability (23 per cent). But all this concern isn't enough to take a toll on their health: worries about health are down seven points to 26 per cent.

In fact, most Indians are fairly confident about their physical wellbeing. Concerns about war, terrorism and crime are down, much lower than global averages. Even across the Asia Pacific region, worries about terrorism and war are down to single digits, while crime merits an 11 per cent rating.

Concerns over crime are highest in South Africa, with over half the respondents from that country worrying about spiralling crime rates there. The figure for India? 10 per cent.

Not surprisingly, the US is the country most concerned about war: 15 per cent, compared to 7 per cent globally and 3 per cent in Asia Pacific. It is followed by Turkey (11 per cent), which shares a border with Iraq, and Australia (9 per cent), which has troops based in Iraq. Indians aren't too worried: just 3 per cent, with only 1 per cent saying war is their biggest concern in the coming year.

There's a significant section of the population that is not bothered by any issues. About 9 per cent of the global respondents fit into this category.

Most of them are from Europe: the Netherlands is the most carefree, with 34 per cent buyers there saying they have no worries at all, followed by 26 per cent in Finland. The Asian countries on the top 10 list for this category are New Zealand (16 per cent) and India (15 per cent), which occupy the ninth and 10th places.

But don't expect consumers across the world to remain so blase. The number of people worried, especially about terrorism, will most likely jump by the time the next survey takes place later this year "" the Mumbai local train blasts and the London airline plot happened after Internet users across the world responded to this round in early June.