Led by India's 'Captain Fantastic' Mahendra Singh Dhoni, five Indians have made it to the Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, whose 'ideas spark dialogue and dissent and sometimes even revolution.'
Led by India's 'Captain Fantastic' Mahendra Singh Dhoni, five Indians have made it to the Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, whose 'ideas spark dialogue and dissent and sometimes even revolution.'
Other Indians on the Time 100 list released Thursday are 'Titan of Industry' Mukesh Ambani, 'Brain Mapper' V.S. Ramachandran, 'Philanthropist' Azim Premji and 'Change Agent' Aruna Roy.
The list is topped by Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who became the 'Spokesman for a Revolution' in Egypt.
Ranked 52nd, Dhoni under whose leadership India won its first Cricket World Cup in 28 years, Time noted, 'is now universally acknowledged as India's best captain ever. He's also its most likable, exuding both cool confidence and down-to-earth humility.'
'Dhoni doesn't just lead a cricket team; he's also India's captain of hope. And he didn't just win India the World Cup; he also taught India how to win,' it said.
The story of Mukesh Ambani ranked 61st 'is straight out of the Bollywood movies of his hometown,' Time said noting, 'He started out in life crammed with six people into a two-bedroom tenement in the most congested part of central Mumbai.'
'Ambani, 54, also took the firm his father founded - Reliance Industries - and turned it into India's largest private-sector company, a $45 billion petrochemicals giant,' it said describing it as 'a new kind of Indian company, built through adroit manipulation of governments and the stock market but also enriching millions of shareholders.'
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates who has profiled 'philanthropist' Azim Premji for the Time, says, 'If anyone personifies India's economic transformation, it is Azim Premji, chairman of the information-technology powerhouse Wipro Ltd.'
'A pioneer of India's IT-outsourcing industry, Premji helped unleash a generation of skilled technical professionals who make up India's growing middle class,' he wrote.
Placed 79th, V.S. Ramachandran, 59, 'once described as the Marco Polo of neuroscience,' the Time said 'has mapped some of the most mysterious regions of the mind.'
'With his simple, creative and innovative ideas,' Ramachandran, 'best known for developing a therapy for phantom-limb pain in which a mirror is used to reflect the intact limb, creating the illusion that the missing one is still there,' it said 'is changing how our brains think about our minds.'
Bringing up the rear for India on the Time list is 'Change Agent' Aruna Roy, who 'starting from a tiny village in the deserts of Rajasthan in the 1980s began a long campaign to bring transparency to India's notoriously corrupt bureaucracy.'
'Many social activists clamour for India to do more for the dispossessed. A former civil servant, Roy doesn't just condemn a broken system; she changes it,' it noted.
Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people in the world is topped by Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who became the 'Spokesman for a Revolution' in Egypt.
'Wael Ghonim has updated the revolutionary adage that when history can't be written with the pen, it must be written with the rifle,' the magazine said.
Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old Facebook CEO, was ranked sixth on the list.
Zuckerberg was also Time magazine's 2010 Person of the Year, making him one of the youngest recipients ever of the title.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was ranked ninth on the list.
'Not universally admired, and facing sex-crime charges in Sweden, Assange has nevertheless drawn the admiration of many for his flinty belief in the value of transparency,' Time said about 'the Wizard from Oz'.
US President Barack Obama ranked 86 on the list. He trailed far behind his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who was ranked 43 on the list. 'It's during times of crisis, not calm, when a President's influence peaks,' Time said.
The 63-year-old US Secretary of State ranked at the 43rd spot on the list.
'A veteran of the international scene, she had the foresight to warn Arab leaders in January that they risked "sinking into the sand" if they didn't move on democratic reforms,' the magazine wrote about Clinton.
Time also said that Clinton has defied skeptics who said she could no longer lead American foreign policy after the leaks.
Pakistani spy master Ahmed Shuja Pasha was ranked 17 on the list.
In this pic, Pasha with Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.
