Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been listed among the 72 most powerful people on the planet By Forbes! Seeing an Indian Head of State featured on Forbes’ annual list is surely a proud moment for every Indian- irrespective of his party affiliations and loyalties.
PM Narendra Modi ranked 15th most powerful person and 7th most powerful politician in the world.
On PM Modi, Forbes said, “India’s newest rock star doesn’t hail from Bollywood. He is the newly elected Prime Minister who sailed into office in May with a landslide victory, ushering the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into power after decades of control by the Gandhi dynasty.”
The Forbes Editors create a list of the most powerful people in the world every one year, choosing one person for every 100 million people walking the Earth. With the world population estimated at 72 billion at the moment, 72 people from across the globe have been named in this list for 2014.
Interestingly, the most powerful person on the planet is not Barack Obama as you might think – it is his arch-rival Vladimir Putin who tops the list.
Nominees to this list are selected by measuring their power along four parameters which include, besides the financial assets controlled by a candidate, the number of people he/ she is in a position to influence, his/ her power in multiple spheres and how actively they have used their power during the last 12 months.
Though the ‘virtual’ Prime Minister of India during the previous Congress led government, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi was placed at No. 21 in the list for 2013, Mr. Manmohan Singh’s name was missing.
With the present occupant firmly straddled in his seat, he has made it to the list, ousting “Madam Ji” from the list.
There are 11 people besides the Indian PM who are being featured on this list for the first time. they include Alibaba owner Jack Ma, Egyptian President Abdel el-Sisi, terror group ISIS chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, General Motors CEO Mary Barra and others.
The youngest person on this list is the 30 year old Facebook founder, owner and CEO Mark Zuckerberg who is at # 22. Second to him are Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin- both 41 year olds. They are placed at numbers 9 and 10 in the list.
Females are not represented well on this list, with only 9 of the 72 most powerful people in the world being women. The silver lining here is that there are two women among the top ten- the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the US Federal Reserve Chief, Janet Yellen. They are placed at numbers 5 and 6 respectively. The list had only three females in it when it was first published in 2009- improvement indeed!
Other Indians apart from the PM who were mentioned on this list include Mukesh Ambani (at number 36), Lakshmi Mittal (at number 57) and Satya Nadella (at number 64).
Other heads of state in this list include the French President Francois Hollande (17), Iranian Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei (19), Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu (26), North Lorean leader Kim Jong-un (49) and Japanese leader Shinzo Abe (63) and others.
See the complete list here.
Air Marshal K. J. Mathews died on May 7 2014 at a young age just as the voting in the 2014 elections was ending. He was killed by RAW for following up my suggestion to emplace India’s nuclear warheads in Washington and New York to be exploded with the warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation or sign of retaliation. Indira and Rajiv Gandhi were both killed by RAW for the same reason — showing my influence. Manmohan Singh on Mathews’ death : “Over the last few years, he had worked closely with my office, and had made an exceptional contribution to numerous projects of immense national importance. I am particularly impressed by his professionalism , dedication and personal warmth. His absence will be sorely felt”, he said [UNI] . The “numerous projects of immense national importance” were the emplacement of India’s nuclear warheads in Washington, New York and other U.S. cities. I had urged the simultaneous nuclear destruction of Washingon, New York and RAW headquarters. India cannot be liberated unless RAW is destroyed. Air Marshal Mathews neglected to do that despite my urging. Will Lt. Gen. Amit Sharma destroy RAW or will he rather die like Mathews? It requires obeying my orders, not the politicians’. Once the warheads are in place in American cities — as they are right now — Washington and New York should be destroyed at the first opportunity — on a working day during working hours in Washington and New York — with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation or sign of retaliation; it will not be working hours in New Delhi where RAW headquarters are which have to be destroyed simultaneously but that is alright. There is no need to wait, otherwise you are just waiting for RAW to kill you.
This is a post I made a couple years ago:-
“Posted by SatishChandra on Jan 12,2011 20:34 PM
Stealth or no-stealth, 5th generation or 4th generation, fighter aircraft are as obsolete for India’s defence as bows and arrows. They can be used against neighbors such as Pakistan and China but the United States is EVERYBODY’S neighbor. It has already invaded and occupied Afghanistan, a part of traditional India and will expand its occupation to the rest of the subcontinent. I am India’s expert in strategic defence and the father of India’s strategic program including the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan means the coast-to–coast destruction of the U.S. by India; see my blog titled ‘Nuclear Supremacy for India Over U.S.’, which can be found by a Yahoo search with the title, for what India needs to do. Russia and other white countries are U.S. allies. These are the enemies to destroy. All other enemies will be taken care of automatically. Conventional arms are worthless for destroying the United States. Nuclear arms to destroy the United States with a FIRST STRIKE — this is the key — are cheap and easy to produce with technology India already has. All the money earmarked for fighter aircraft etc., and more, must be pumped into research, development and production of missiles able to deliver India’s nuclear warheads — in the thousands — to the continental United States. India’s missile scientists & engineers should have tested such missiles to their full range decades ago — everything else, including short and intermediate range missiles and missile defence, is secondary and tertiary — but have not done that because of prohibitions by India’s C.I.A.-controlled governments. This must be done on a war footing after first destroying RAW through which the C.I.A. rules India; see my blog. Satish Chandra”
Since I wrote the above India’s nuclear warheads have been emplaced in Washington, New York and other U.S. cities to destroy Washington and New York with a signal from anywhere in the world with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation or sign of retaliation.
Satish Chandra
There is a typo in the article. World’s population is 7.2 billion and not 72 billion