Priyanka Chopra, Sania Mirza, Sundar Pichai too in the ‘Influential’ list.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
Actress Priyanka Chopra, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan, tennis player Sania Mirza, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, founders of Flipkart Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal and environmentalist Sunita Narain have been featured in the Time magazine’s list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was a probable contender for the list, didn’t find a place in the final list. Modi was featured in the list last year.
“She has an ability to inspire people to do more and achieve more. When I look at her success from the 50,000-ft. view and see everything that Priyanka has already done, is currently doing and has the desire and the bandwidth to do, I can see that her impact is going to be invaluable,” actor Dwayne Johnson wrote about Priyanka Chopra in her profile.
“Steered India through the global crisis and fallout, playing a large role in making it one of the emerging-market stars of the moment,” read the profile of Rajan. “While serving as the youngest chief economist of the IMF from 2003 to 2006, he predicted the subprime crisis that would lead to the Great Recession, standing up to critics like former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who labeled him a Luddite,” the profile added.
Terming Sania Mirza as “utterly dominant,” Sachin Tendulkar said that “Sania’s confidence, strength, and resilience reach beyond tennis. She has inspired a generation of Indians to pursue their dreams—and to realize that they can also be the best.”
“When Sania’s singles career was cut short by wrist injuries, she, through dedication and willpower, reinvented herself fully as a doubles player,” he added.
Indian-born CEO of Google Sundar Pichai “has helped change the world,” his profile says.
“He worked on Google Chrome, Gmail, and Android phones. A great many of us can’t tell which side of a street we’re on without checking Google Maps. He was born in Chennai, India, to a poor family, and discovered an aptitude for numbers when his family got its first telephone, a rotary, when he was 12,” read his profile.
“Nimble tacticians and hardheaded realists,” Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, who found e-commerce website Flipkart in 2007, have developed the company into a $13 billion business empire.
Environmentalist Sunita Narain has been featured in the list for the first time. “Hers is a voice that urgently needs to be heard in this era of climate change,” said her profile.
“Despite resistance from many quarters, some of their key recommendations have been embraced by the courts,” it added.
The list also includes well-known personalities like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Pope Francis, actor Dwayne Johnson, Apple CEO Tim Cook, IMF chief Christine Lagarde, US Secretary of State John Kerry, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, candidate for the Republican nomination for the US Presidential election Donald Trump, Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio, and singer Adele.