Rahman, Nilekani on Time 100 list

Oscar winning Indian music director AR Rahman of Slumdog Millionaire fame his Sri Lankan coperformer MIA of the hit O Saya song and Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani have made it to the Time 100 list of the Worlds Most Influential PeopleThe new list to be published in the May 11 annual Time 100 issue is the pick of the magazines editors and may not be confused with the popular choice in TIMEcoms online poll that just happened to be won Monday by moot the mysterious 21yearold creator of the influential Web message board 4chanor In our annual TIME 100 issue we do the impossible name the people who most affect our world said the editors as they relegated moot to the 35th position and instead chose ailing Democratic senator Edward Kennedy for the top spot British premier Gordon Brown makes it to the second spot US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the eighth place Pakistan army chief Ashfaq Kayani is sitting pretty at the 19th position just a spot ahead of President Barack Obama AR Rahman who gets the 59th position in the editors list won two Oscars a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for giving Slumdog Millionaire its frenetic sound notes Padma Lakshmi actress author and the host of Bravos Top Chef in an accompanying piece In India a country of a billion inhabitants where film and pop music are one AR Rahman 43 dominates the music industry so totally that he has supplied the sound track for a whole generation she writes A veritable Pied Piper he has shaped modern Indias music for more than a decade Now the Mozart of Madras has the worlds foot tapping along with him adds Lakshmi noting the award winning Jai Ho is now the campaign song for Indias Congress Party Vikas Swarup the author of the novel QampA that became the Oscarwinning film Slumdog Millionaire describes Nandan Nilekani placed 31 as a middleclass kid from a small town who rose to become a cofounder and cochairman of Infosys Technologies and a key player in Indias growth story In a blog post about Slumdog Millionaire Nandan Nilekani alluded to the films valuable subtext that it doesnt matter where you come from only where you are headed he writes That could serve equally as an epigraph for Nandans own life As the new India fuelled by its robust democracy and favorable demographics seeks to make the transition from a developing nation to a developed one it will need the vision and talent of people like Nandan Nilekani Swarup adds The great thing about MIA as Maya Arulpragasam placed 43rd is known is that she doesnt have some global plan writes producer director Spike Jonze She just has things she cares about and is interested in from all over the world She reacts to whatever is in front of her Those are booming Indian drums That is a dope producer Those kids are making sick beats And she has great taste Anyone can hear all this stuff but to be able to curate it you have to have taste and Maya Arulpragasam 33 has it he adds