Forbes list of most powerful people:
Hu Jintao pips Obama
Chinese President Hu Jintao has been named the most powerful person
in the world by Forbes, ahead of US President Barack Obama who is ranked
second among 68 people "who matter," a list that also includes Congress
President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Presidents Hu Jintao and Barack Obama |
Gandhi ranks 9 on the Forbes 2010 list. Singh comes in at number 18.
India's business tycoons Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani,
Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata and head of ArcelorMittal, Lakshmi Mittal
also make the list.
Of the 6.8 billion people on the planet, Forbes' list comprises "the
68 who matter."
The heads of state, major religious figures, entrepreneurs and
outlaws on the second annual list were chosen "because, in various ways,
they bend the world to their will."
Jintao, 67, occupies the top slot for being the "paramount political
leader of more people than anyone else on planet" and one who "exercises
near dictatorial control over 1.3 billion people, one-fifth of world's
population."
Forbes said unlike his Western counterparts, Hu, head of the world's
largest army, can "divert rivers, build cities, jail dissidents and
censor Internet without meddling from pesky bureaucrats, courts." His
country, which refuses to "kowtow" to US pressure to change its exchange
rate regime, recently surpassed Japan to become the world's second
largest economy.
China is also poised to overtake the US as the world's largest
economy in 25 years.
Forbes said the second most powerful person is Obama who has slipped
in this year's ranking after occupying the top slot last year.
His Democratic Party suffered a mighty blow in the just concluded US
midterm elections, with the President decisively losing support of the
House of Representatives and barely holding onto the Senate. |