Mumbaikars are 5th most honest in world: survey

New Delhi: Mumbaikars are becoming more and more polite in spite of their competitive lifestyles, increasing restlessness and tougher living conditions.

According to a survey by the Reader's Digest magazine on how honest people are in the world's 32 most populous cities, Mumbai finished fifth along with Manila and New York.

As part of the survey, journalists working for the magazine left 30 mid-priced mobile phones in public places in 32 cities around the world and recorded how often the misplaced phone were returned to their owners by the people who found them.

The journalists rang the phone as people walked past and watched to see if people would answer the phone, take the phone and attempt to call someone in the pre-programmed contacts later, or simply pocket it. In Mumbai, home to a very large number of poor, finders returned 24 of the 30 telephones.

According to the magazine, after two 15-year-old schoolgirls, Vidhi Goradia and her friend, found a phone on the cemented seaside seating at Marine Drive, "we watched as they got into a heated discussion before they returned the phone to us".

In case of the six other phones, however, SIM cards were removed before long.

Reader's Digest said Mumbai may have come last in its politeness survey last year, but its citizens "proved to be amazingly honest".

The magazine said in its latest issue that all the seven women who found Reader's Digest phones returned them.

The most honest city in the survey turned out to be Slovenia's Ljubljana, where 97 per cent of runaway phones found their way back to their rightful owners. Toronto came at the second spot with 28 returned telephones, followed by Seoul (27) and Stockholm (26).

Almost 77 per cent of the lost phones were returned in Helsinki, which gave Finland eight place in the ranking.

Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur didn't fare so well, tying for worst performance with only 13 of the 30 "lost" phones returned in each city. The telephone recovery in some of the wealthiest cities was poor.

Auckland saw only 23 phones returning to the Reader's Digest team, Paris and Berlin just 21 each, Zurich 20, Sydney and London 19 each, Madrid 18, Singapore just 16 and Amsterdam 14. Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur finished at the bottom with 13 telephones each.