Time magazine on Thursday put out the 2016 edition of the ‘Time 100 influential people’, and six Indian names have found their way onto the list. Here is a look at the six Indians who made the cut:
Sunita Narain
Sunita Narain is a New Delhi-based activist who heads the Centre for Science and Environment. Among the highlights of her career that Time listed were her campaign “to reduce the Indian capital’s dangerous air-pollution levels for almost two decades”, and her advocacy of “policies that recognize India’s forest dwellers and indigenous peoples as essential custodians of their environments”. Narain was also featured in the Pioneer’s category.
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal
Founders of the e-commerce website Flipkart, Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, started the site as an online bookstore, which has now grown into an e-commerce giant that ships about 8 million packages a month, and is valued at around $11 billion. The tribute to the duo talked about their “modest lifestyles, by billionaire standards”, and described them as “nimble tacticians and hardheaded realists”. The duo were named under the Titans category.
Priyanka Chopra
Rising to fame in international spheres for her stellar performance in ‘Quantico’, Priyanka Chopra is scaling new heights. “I don’t want to be called an actor, I don’t want to be called a star; I don’t want to have a label, I want to have a legacy,” she says in her Time video. Her tribute by fellow Baywatch star, Dwayne Johnson, says, “She has drive, ambition, self-respect, and she knows there’s no substitute for hard work.” Chopra enters the list in the Artists category.
Sania Mirza
Sania Mirza, the first Indian to win a Women’s Tennis Association event in 2005, is currently ranked No. 1 in the women’s doubles rankings. In his tribute to her, Sachin Tendulkar writes, “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.”
Raghuram Rajan, India’s prescient banker
Currently serving as the Governor of India’s Central bank, Raghuram Rajan was the youngest chief economist to occupy office at the International Monetary Fund and is credited for accelerating and safeguarding India’s economy. He began his career as a Professor at the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago. He was named under the Leaders category in the list, this year.
Sundar Pichai, The Internet's chief engineer
Sundar Pichai, who hails from the southern city of Chennai is the Chief Executive Officer of internet giant Google. Having graduated from IIT-Kharagpur in Metallurgical Engineering, Pichai went on to pursue his M.S. from Stanford University and later graduated with an MBA degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Google in 2004 and was closely associated with the development of Google OS, Google Chrome and Google Drive. He was given complete charge of the internet and relative services at Google, after Alphabet Inc, a company for all the sub-companies under Google was formed. The first line of the tribute to him, perfectly sums up his relevance to the world: “Sundar Pichai has helped change the world.” He was named under the Pioneers category in the list.
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