Sonia Gandhi, Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi among top five influential Asians

LONDON: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi have been named among top 5 in the list of 100 influential Asians topped by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi, also head of the ruling Communist Party of China, heads the list of the 100 Most Influential Asian People of 2014 published by Asian Awards Ltd 2014.

The Asian Awards honouring Asian Excellence is founded by businessman Paul Sagoo.

Modi is fourth in the list followed by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Chinese Premier Le Keqiang is third.

Others in the top 10 are Sir Li Ka Shing, Hong Kong-based business tycoon (7), UN chief Ban Ki Moon (8), Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (9) and South Korea President Park Guen-Hye (10).

Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram is listed 11 while President Pranab Mukherjee is 19th. Pakistan's former Army Chief Ashfaq Kayani is 18th in the list.

Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani is 21st in the list followed by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (22).

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa is 34th in the list while Lakshmi Mittal, India's Business magnate who is worth 17.5 billion USD is 36th.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is 42nd Influential person while Indian tycoon Azim Premji is 44th.

Social activist Anna Hazare is listed as 46 influential person ahead of Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi Co. Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner for Economics, is 52nd while Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director of ICICI Bank, is 54th.

Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan is 63rd and cultural icon Rajnikanth is 66th. Indian film actor Aamir Khan is 68th in the list while Sachin Tendulkar is 76th.

Actress Aishwarya Rai is 84th while film star Salman Khan is 98th in the list which also include Indian cricket captain M S Dhoni (99th). Paul Sagoo, Founder, The Asian Awards, said "the aim of the list is simple, to showcase the most influential Asian people in the world today. However, with literally thousands of worthy candidates, the task proved to be an immense challenge for the researchers and the judging panel."