Mother Teresa of Calcutta has been voted the greatest Indian since the country's independence in 1947 in an Indian magazine survey.

Top ten Indians

Mother Teresa Jawaharlal Nehru Vallabhbhai Patel Indira Gandhi JRD Tata BR Ambedkar Dhibhai Ambani Sachin Tendulkar Jayaprakash Narayan Atal Behari Vajpayee

She was the only one on the list not an Indian by birth, led the tally in most of the states in India and across all age groups in the survey carried out by leading English-langauge magazine, Outlook.

Mother Teresa was ranked ahead of independent India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, as well as frontline independence leader Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who was instrumental in getting the princely states to join the Indian Union.

Mother Teresa, born in Albania, dedicated her life to work among the poor and dying for which she won a Nobel Prize.

She set up amongst other charity organisations, the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950 and lived there until her death in September 1997.

Survey respondents

The survey received 50,000 responses which was more then expected.

Mother Teresa: Praised more by younger generation

"The response was beyond anything we had imagined," an editorial in the magazine said.

"The responses kept flooding in over e-mail, fax and snail mail till the last minute."

The survey showed that Indians below the age of 25 years ranked Mother Teresa higher than Jawaharlal Nehru, while those aged 45 years and above voted him as the greatest.

Respondents who are 60 years and above seem to be more cynical about Mother Teresa's contribution than the rest.

The poll did not include the leader of India's freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi, because the magazine decided "to keep the father of the nation above a voting process".