By Arun Kumar

Washington, Dec 1 (IANS): Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently among the top 10 of the TIME Person of the Year readers' choice poll in the company of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and Pope Francis.

Although Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (10.5 percent) continues to lead the poll, Modi with a vote share of 2.7 percent was in the eighth place as of Monday evening while Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai (5.9 percent) was in the second place and Pope Francis (3.9 percent) in the third.

Sanders also far outpaces other presidential candidates, including Republican Donald Trump (2.1 percent) and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton (1.4 percent).

Modi, according to the Time profile, "has encouraged foreign direct investment in India and is trying to modernise the world's largest democracy. He has also faced controversy over what some see as right wing extremism".

Google's Indian-American CEO Sundar Pichai is currently in the 25th place with a vote share of 1.5 percent, while Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani was in the 55th slot with a 0.5 percent vote share.

With global figures taking five of the top ten spots in the final week of voting, US President Barack Obama (3.5 percent) was in the fourth place, "refugees" were in fifth and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in tenth place.

International leaders have been named most influential by the magazine in recent years. The Pope was TIME's Person of the Year in 2013, and before that Russian President Vladimir Putin was chosen as Person of the Year in 2007.

Voting on the readers' choice poll ends December 4 at 11:59 p.m., and the winner of the poll will be announced Dec 7.

TIME's editors will choose the Person of the Year, the person TIME believes most influenced the news this year for better or worse. It may well differ from the readers' choice.