Indian voters are growing unhappy with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government due to high inflation and unemployment but he is still on track to comfortably win a third term in elections next year due to his personal popularity, a key survey said. The popularity of main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has risen and a new, 26-party opposition alliance called "INDIA" is expected to do well, the "Mood of the Nation" survey by India Today magazine said on Friday. Modi, however, is far ahead of Gandhi with a 36-point lead as the candidate best-suited to be India's next prime minister and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win 287 seats in the 542-member lower house of parliament if elections are held now, it said.
Annalena Baerbock, chancellor candidate for Germany's ecologist Greens, sought on Friday to draw a line under an expenses scandal that has coincided with a dip in her popularity. Since naming Baerbock last month as their candidate, opinion polls have shown the Greens overtaking the conservative alliance of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who plans to step down after September's federal election. But a survey published on Friday showed a dip in Baerbock's personal popularity, coinciding with news reports that she failed to declare to officials in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, a Christmas bonus paid to her by her party.