India is the least generous country among eight South Asian nations and ranks a dismal 106th in a global report of people who help strangers, donate money or volunteer their time for a good cause.
The research by London-based Charitable Aid Foundation (CAF) found that Myanmar ranked highest in the world for generosity, with the United States 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 CAF 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 annual CAF World Giving Index is a study of global charitable behaviour based on surveys in 145 countries carried out by Gallup.
The 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 per cent - down eight percentage points on 2013.
There were also fewer Indians who had volunteered or helped a stranger in the last month, with 17 per cent of people having volunteered (a drop of four percentage points) and 37 per cent of people having helped a stranger (a drop of two percentage points).
India ranked as the 106th most generous country overall - just behind Brazil - and the eighth out of eight countries included from Southern Asia.
Gallup interviewed 3,000 Indians face-to-face between September 7 and October 15, 2014.
The survey excluded population living in Northeast states and on remote islands. In addition, some districts from Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand were replaced due to deteriorating security situation. The excluded areas represent less than 10 per cent of the population.
