Forbes‘s annual “100 most powerful women” list names Indra Nooyi, Chairman & CEO of PepsiCo the #5 most powerful woman in the world and the most powerful Desi woman. She edges out #6 – Sonia Gandhi, President of the Congress Party — thus creating a pretty impressive showing in the top 10. The final desi on the list, and a previously unknown one to me – #97 Vidya Chhabria – hails from the UAE.
A hearty SM congrats all around.
Worth noting – Pratibha Patil gets a nod as a “powerful woman behind the woman”; now that will get some SM tongues wagging.
i thought sonya gandhi was italian or something….meh, what do i know….
i suspect since many people here were born abroad, raised in the USA, and have been asked “where are you from?” their whole lives, they’re a little more inclined to cut sonia a little slack on not being native born and brown.
Mrs. Gandhi’s citizenship is Indian.
I think Vidya is Manu Chhabria’s widow. Manu used to own Shaw Wallace in addition to Jumbo electronics which was one of the biggest liqour companies in India. He went on from trading radio parts in Lamington Road in Bombay to establishing a $1.5 billion empire.
C’mon Sonia Gandhi has to be ranked higher than Indray Nooyi. Like it or not, Sonia has a say over the lives of 1/6 of humanity. Indra: fizzy drinks.
ah. didnt realize that.
Runa’s comment is not accurate at all. When Sonia married Rajiv, she insisted they live in Italy and expressed distaste for India as a whole. It was only after it was clear they could continue to wield their undemocratic, monarch-like influence over the country that she agreed to return. Furthermore, from everything I read, Indira Gandhi was hardly her “beloved” mother-in-law.
It’s hardly Xenophobic to want an Indian to rule India, and I mean that knowing about Puppet Singh official position. Everyone knows Sonia calls the shots with the support of the Congress faithful. [redacted]
calling for a political assasination is hardly an acceptable form of political discourse.
anyone sick of being an immigrant to the US, and not being accepted as an american? how are you defining “an indian”?
And by the way, before anyone starts with the argument about whether or not we are really American and shouldn’t talk 1) America is a land of immigrants, India isn’t. India has a large indigenous population that agitated for self-rule; Sonia is essentially a colonialist in my view. 2)Despite the fact American is a land of immigrants (except for Native Americans), it is illegal for even naturalized citizens to hold the highest office. Therefore, while Sonia could rule India despite being born Italian, my parents and most brown people in America could not be president. Not to mention no ethnic minority has ever held either of the highest positions in the U.S. If anything, America is less tolerant of diversity in its political leaders than India.
thast exactly my point. being intolerant of diversity in political leaders isnt a good thing. why would you want to replicate that in india, where they have a better way of doing things.
the fact that she took indian citizenship says that it is possible to immigrate to india. if you can immigrate to india, you can become indian. therefore blanketly claiming that india is not a land of immigrants is not fair to anyone who has immigrated to india. if someone takes citizenship of any country, they change nationalities.
colonialists dont change their citizenship to local and then run for political office in a democratic system. it takes more than 1 person to be a colonialist.
yes. i do know a bit about indian history. just because some people like to kill their leaders in india, doesnt mean that calling for murder on SM is a civilised form of discourse. im not saying that all indian leaders were good, but murdering a democratically elected leader isnt a very good way to go.
would sgandhi be as popular if she was black or at lets say what would be considered non fair skineed in India?
Yes but changing nationalities does not mean you should be entitled to lead the country. What does Sonia Gandhi know about the lives of real Indian people? She married into the first family and has been surrounded by wealth and opulence her entire life. India needs leaders who come from the people and understand what the concerns facing them in their everyday lives are, not some Italian lady who happens to have gotten lucky in love and married the de facto prince of the country.
don’t feed the troll people.
Hillside
Puh -leeze! I agreed that its ok to not want Sonia as the PM( I said so myself). But I said and will continue to say that the kind of vile attacks heaped on her were xenophobic and not necessary at all.
Sitting here in the USA , I hardly think its appropriate for us to question the Indianness of someone who chooses to make India her home. Also ,I think its fairly clear that Sonia had a good relationship with Mrs.I.Gandhi ( not so much Menaka G ,I know!)
As far as the law goes, the Indian constitution does NOT require a person born to be born in India to serve public office there. If there is a problem with the law, then the law needs to be changed. Sushma Swaraj’s public chest-beating and threats of head-shaving is NOT the way to go.Not in a democracy. As for advocating political assasinations, that is so far out that I will not even dignify it with a response.
Razib, Too late
SM Intern : Please feel free to delete everything – including my comments.I feel that the discourse has taken an ugly turn which has no place in SM
her being surrounded by wealth and not knowing the plight of the average man has nothing to do with her birth nationality. you can have a lot of leaders that are indian from an upper crust background that dont know the life of poverty. This is not an issue of her italian heritige.
i concur with the do over.
The problem I have with Sonia Gandhi making it to this list is that she did nothing to deserve it and it was handed to her by default. She did not climb the treacherous corporate ladder by hard work, she did not raise the productivity of a city or a state, she did not participate in reducing crime, she did not invent a cure for a deadly disease nor did she start a business that created wealth/jobs.
Nothing. Not an iota of value was created by her.
She married, tried to flee to Italy twice during India’s crisis, secluded herself, became a widow, secluded herself again, rushed to become PM, failed and then secluded herself again, tried to become PM yet again, failed, and now remote controls a dingbat who hallucinates on national TV that Hindus conducted havans for his death. All because India’s greatest political party lost its internal democracy under her mother-in-law.
M. Nam
Strangely enough, I’m half-Italian and half-punjabi and I must admit, no two cultures could be more alike in their traditionalism and general undercurrent of xenophobia. That being said, I would vote for a martian if they took the interests and the plight of the masses to heart, and did something other than line their pockets and the pockets of their friends. In that way, I get you, hillside. It’s the absolute injustice of it all that makes you rage. My Italian side isn’t even offended by your Malcolm X-ian argument.
My vote is on Arundhati Roy for leader of the world. 🙂
Strangely enough, I’m half-Italian and half-punjabi and I must admit, no two cultures could be more alike in their traditionalism and general undercurrent of xenophobia.
do you think it is a coincidence that these are the two cultures you have seen up close? 😉
Gandhi making it to this list is that she did nothing to deserve it and it was handed to her by default
Well, she ran the 2004 campaign that brought Congress back to power; the one in which the BJP claimed India was “Shining”.
If she were assasinated, Congress would call a snap election and win 350 seats. The BJP would be reduced once again to its Jana Sangh-like historical totals.
Hillside – you are conveniently mixing two issues which need separate consideration.
Should a person not of Indian origin be allowed to be the head of state in India? Absolutely, if the person deserves to be one, has a knowledge as good as any local and his loyalty to the country cannot be doubted more than the average Indian.
Did Sonia Gandhi have what it takes to be the PM? Probably not, she just had the Gandhi family name and that was her only claim to fame.
MoorNam,
To be fair to her.
It is true that she started as a reluctant Indian. Her credentials as a politician and a leader were seriously doubted, rightfully so.
However,
In last few years, she has become quite a power-broker even at the most basic level. She pulls a lot of crowds in rallies all over the nation, helped Congress stage a comeback from cold storage, is a huge vote getter, a national symbol for her party in a country where regionalism still is very alive, and runs a national party in 2nd most populous nation that is a democracy. Right now, she does all the politics for her party, and she has started showing signs of deftness (I personally was leery of her but she pulled Congress out of doldrums).
Sure, she is not the part of the Government.
That list has a fair amount of female politicians, so she is not the only one.
As far as I know: the main consternation was that she didn’t apply for indian citizenship even after living about a decade in India, but only decided to do so when Rajiv decided to contest the elections.
Razib, lol! Excellent point, well made. I concede.
I do concur with Kush, that was then when there was opposition to her becoming PM. In the last few years she has shown a reasonable amount of skills, and compared to a lot of dingbats in the Indian political scene, she is not so bad and I wont have as many issues about her becoming PM now.
Plus, people keep bringing up her lack of affection for India in her early years but to think of it, she had never lived there. You cannot become accustomed overnight and she has indeed stuck around for a greater part of her life. Blaming her for everything that is wrong with the congress is a little unfair though as it’s leader she can change things. Don’t vote for the congress but not because Sonia is of Italian birth.
by ‘She’ I meant ‘Sonia Gandhi’.
Kush,
Agreed that she’s a crowd puller and is useful during elections and power brokering. I owe that more to the slavish mentality of the current day grassroots congress worker.
But that’s not enough. To become a PM, you have to make decisions on controversial issues and get a consensus. She’s not demonstrated that quality even once. In the current nuclear deal brouhaha, she could not convince the leftists to support Congress.
M. Nam
Pepsico’s Nooyi ranked above Sonia Gandhi? Since when selling sugared water was of greater import in the grand scheme of things than making decisions that might affect, for better or for worse, the future of 1.3 billion people? Define power.
I have the typical businessman’s admiration for Nooyi and suspicion of politicians. But I still say that these “most powerful” type rankings are usually silly. Another problem I have with the selection process is the glaring absence of Aishwarya Rai from the list. She is far prettier than Katie Couric (#63), and even using Forbes’s preferred business metrics, a much bigger economic franchise than Couric. Define power.
To all those billions of women who didn’t make the list, I say that the hand that rocks the cradle…, something, something.
although india is over a billion people, having power in india just doesnt translate in peoples minds. it doesnt matter how many poeples lives you effect. its how many “rich” peoples lives you effect.
MoorNam,
I do not think she wants to be PM, either for many reasons, one of them future prospects of Rahul Gandhi.
Thousands or more people showing up on rallies are aam janta (common people), not slavish congress foot soldiers. They do find some connection with her.
Personally, both in Indian and US politics, I have a centrist, independent stance. I will support Congress if it makes sense, and BJP, if it makes sense for that particular issue.
I also think PM Singh is asserting his own independence too – recent example is Indo-US deal, Manmohan Singh has taken open tough stance irrespective of political fallout.
Sorry, hit post before I was done and then had to go do some work for awhile, the kind that can pay a bill or two. But what I was curious about was how does Forbes define power for the purpose of the list? I too was surprised to see Indra Nooyi ranked higher than Sonia Gandhi.
power over filthy poor brown people dont count. power over rich white people does count. not sure if its any more complex than that.
Puli, I don’t entirely agree with this statement. Given that this is Forbes, they probably rank a person with more influence over a few rich people higher than one with influence over many poorer people, but I don’t think race has anything to do with this list. It’s just Forbes – Playboy for capitalists. Both Indra Nooyi and Sonia Gandhi would probably be trounced at this listing contest by (say) Lakshmi Mittal, who in turn would be crushed by Buffet and Gates.
It might be the lack of understanding of parliamentary systems. They may equate being the head of the Congress party in India with being the head of the Democratic or Republican party here in the US. One forms governments (and typically takes the PM spot), the other officiates primaries and fund raising.
Hillside, your comments are out of line and offensive. I can’t believe I have to type this, but calling for anyone’s assassination on SM will not be tolerated. Stop. Be civil and reasonable or don’t comment.
As for everyone who went there:
This post is not about your personal opinion on Sonia Gandhi’s legitimacy or whether her in-laws suck. This post is about a list from Forbes. Getting back on topic would be recommendable at this point, for several reasons, righting the “ugly turn” this thread has taken especially.
SM Intern: [redacted] Thanks for bringing this back on track
Given that obesity is on the rise in India (and in the US), and with junk foods like PepsiCo’s playing some role, I’d say she has power. I think the health-care and pharmaceutical industries will agree too.
why wouldnt the president of india be considered one of the powerful people? why is she a woman behind the woman?
Forbes writes, “Our second ranking of the world’s most powerful women illustrates how fleeting power is.” Maybe it should instead read, “…illustrates how arbitrary our rankings are.” Yeah, they’ve posted the outline to some vague and confusing formula concocted to quantify each list members’ power (described as “a composite of visibility measured by press citations and economic impact”), but the very idea of quantifying power in an abstract sense is f$%^in stupid. Methinks it likely that some white, Ivy league-educated male editors concocted this list in an effort to sell more Nair ads. But what do I know…
Isn’t PepsiCo the second or third largest stock traded on the NYSE? I have no idea — I’m not into the stock market at all, but I vaguely remember watching a presentation on the primacy of Coke, and it was like 8x bigger than PepsiCo. Not saying that that makes one person more powerful than another, per se, but Forbes is kind of business/market-oriented, so it seems their “power” measure privileges those types of things over others…
Sugar water? Give Ms Nooyi some credit. PepsiCo is one of the biggest food & beverages company. Revenues of more than $35 billion and over 168,000 employees (link). Not that she should rank above SG.
Kush, you nailed it…everything that Sonia does…EVERYTHING…is done with the ultimate goal of Rahul becoming prime minister one day…and knowing the voters of India, I’m sure it will happen. But what that means is, she will play any political game to make it a reality…and there can’t be much concern for the people of India in that.
nfw….
On Pepsico’s Nooyi – she took over as ‘President and CEO’ on October 1, 2006, and then somewhat suddenly, on May 2, 2007, she became ‘Chairman and CEO’. Link
Setting aside the issue of whether ‘Chairman’ is the right word for her – in many corporate governance structures, the ‘Chairman’ is usually a figurehead, and the real power resides with a President or COO. On the other hand, she is also CEO, so maybe she does carry some real heft in the Boardroom. But up until fairly recently, Pepsico put her in their ‘Diversity Timeline’ – Link.
Prime Minister wields real power. Prez is more of a figurehead*. SG rules the Cong. I. The PM is supposed to be under her thumb. Hence woman behind the woman.
45 should’ve been companies.
I found this article interesting about pepsi-politics in India: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2007/gb20070531_868198.htm
It suggests that Nooyi’s ascension to such a high position may have thawed the chill between pepsi and the most influential Indian anti-pepsi activist, a woman named Sunita Narain.