Modi, Mukesh, Sundar in fray for Time Person of the Year

Time said 2015 is filled with newsmakers who have defined the year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Reliance Industries Ltd. chairman Mukesh Ambani and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are among over 50 global leaders, business chiefs and pop icons named as contenders by the Time magazine for its “Person of the Year” honour to be announced on December 9.

The title goes to a person who “most influenced the news this year for better or worse”.

“Prime Minister of India 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,” the magazine said.

Mr. Modi was a contender last year too, but was only named the winner of the readers’ poll as he had secured more than 16 per cent of the almost five million votes cast. The readers’ poll this year will close at 11.59 p.m. on December 4 and the winner announced on December 7. Mr. Modi now ranks 19th in the poll, with 1.4 per cent of the vote share, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping who has 0.9 %.

“The chairman of RIL — which owns everything from telecommunications properties to the world’s largest crude oil refinery — is the richest person in India,” said the magazine. Mr. Mukesh Ambani has been able to garner 0.3 per cent of the vote share and is ahead of Michael Dell who has 0.2 per cent.

As for the Chennai-born Sundar Pichai, the magazine said: “After 11 years at Google, most recently as co-founder Larry Page’s right hand, Pichai assumed the tech giant’s top job. Amid a wave of change, he will oversee core businesses, including search, ads, Android and YouTube.”

In a separate ‘face-off’ poll, Mr. Modi has been pitted against Mr. Xi, and Mr. Ambani against Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Narendra Modi, Mahatma Gandhi among most admired globally: World Economic Forum survey

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the 10th most admired personality globally, as per a new survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) that has ranked late South African President Nelson Mandela on the top.

Mahatma Gandhi is ranked the fourth most admired personality, according to a survey of more than 1,000 millennials (generation with birth years generally ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s). The respondents were spread across 285 cities in 125 countries.

After Mandela, the WEF's Global Shapers Annual Survey 2015 found that Pope Francis is the second most admired leader. Others in the list are Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk (3rd rank), Microsoft Founder Bill Gates (5), US President Barack Obama (6th), Virgin Group Founder Richard Barson (7), Apple Founder Steve Jobs (8), Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus (9) and US investor Warren Buffett (11).

Out of the 1,084 respondents, 3 per cent voted for Modi as well as for Yunus while 20.1 per cent favoured Mandela. As many as 12.4 per cent of the respondents voted for Gandhi.

All the survey respondents are members of the WEF's Global Shapers Community aged between 20 and 30 years.



In the list of 11, three personalities are not alive - Mandela, Gandhi and Jobs.

Modi became Prime Minister in May 2014.

WEF said Gandhi "is known for his doctrine of nonviolent protests in order to achieve progress. The Indian lawyer, social activist, politician and writer became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India".

About Mandela, the report said that abolition of apartheid remains his greatest legacy, and under his leadership, South Africa emerged as a genuine democracy that saw many changes.

"Pope Francis is the first Latin American and non-European pope in more than 1,200 years. As the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he is the moral and spiritual leader of 1.2 billion people all over the world - from the Philippines, where 86 per cent of the population identify as Roman Catholic, to Brazil, which has over 125 million Catholics," WEF said.