PM Modi, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, SII’s Adar Poonawalla In Time’s 100 Most Influential People List

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the chief executive officer of the Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune Adar Poonawalla were listed in the Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year, according to the list released by the magazine on Wednesday.

Among global leaders, US President Joe Biden, US Vice President Kamala Harris, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Israel’s Naftali Bennett, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi were also listed among the 100 most influential people this year. Former US President Donald Trump and the Taliban government’s deputy PM Abdul Ghani Baradar of Afghanistan also were among the leaders.

PM Modi, who has found himself in the list a few times in previous years, was called one of the pivotal leaders of the country by the magazine. “Despite mishandling COVID-19—the death toll has been estimated to be much higher than the official count—his approval rating has slipped to a still sky-high 71%,” wrote Fareed Zakaria, of US news channel CNN, in the magazine.

SII CEO Poonawalla has been listed among the 15 people whom the magazine called “Pioneers” inside the influential 100 list. “Vaccine inequality is stark, and delayed immunization in one part of the world can have global consequences—including the risk of more dangerous variants emerging,” the Time said while briefing on how Poonawalla could help the world in its fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee was also among the list of leaders after her victory in the state assembly elections earlier this year, which her party the Trinamool Congress won. The election was tightly contested between her and Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Taliban’s Abdul Ghani Baradar, the current deputy PM of Afghanistan, was called “a charismatic military leader and a deeply pious figure,” by the magazine. Further the magazine also said “Now he stands as the fulcrum for the future of Afghanistan” and “represents a more moderate current within the Taliban.”