Nandan Nilekani, Vikram Akula in Time list of 100 most influential people

Infosys president Nandan Nilekani and New York-based NRI entrepreneur Vikram Akula have figured in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people who shaped the world.

The list also included Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, Iranian leader Mohmoud Ahmadinejad, US President George W Bush, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabo, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Pope Benedict among others.

Describing Nilekani, who founded Infosys with N R Narayana Murty, as a "great explainer," Time said, "He has a unique ability not simply to programme software but also to explain how that programme fits into the emerging trends in computing business and how that transformation will affect global politics and economics."

He was one of the Indian engineer-entrepreneurs most responsible for creating the new reality that has produced a new image about India as a country of "brainy" people and "software engineers," the magazine said.

Akula is the 37-year-old founder of SKS Microfinance, which uses smart cards to make venture capital available to over 800 million people living on less than two dollars in India. He has made SKS one of the fastest-growing microlenders, having dispensed $52 million to 221,000 clients since 1998, Time said.

Loaning a few bucks may not sound like cutting-edge banking but Akula is using advanced technology in the areas where there are few land telephone lines and no ATMs, it said.

In such areas, he is starting to dispense loans, typically $116, on smart cards, which its land officers have been using to record repayment electronically, it added.

The 'plastic approach' of Akula "intrigued" Visa International, which is now pairing his firm SKS Microfinance with cell phone-based card readers, Time said.

Akula, who grew up in upstate New York, said poverty in India is "disconcerting".

"I just thought that I must do something. When you see the people suffer, make sacrifices, and when you experience the unstated intimacy of this suffering, only then you realise the brute reality of poverty," he said.

US Senator Hillary Clinton, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, Pakistani gang-rape victim and rights activist Mukhtaran Bibi and Bhutan King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, who gave up absolute power, are also in the list.

Time said Musharraf was "standing between order and cataclysm in Pakistan" and Iran's Ahmadinejad was "challenging the most powerful nations on the nuclear issue".

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born surgeon said to be guiding the activities of al Qaeda terror network in Iraq finds place under the list's 'leaders and revolutionaries' section, which also included firebrand Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sader and Venezuela's Leftist President Hugo Chavez.

Israeli leader Ehud Olmert, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Jinichiro Koizumi also figured in that section, besides American talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

The list of 100 also includes former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George H W Bush (Senior) for their joint efforts to help tsunami victims and former US Vice President Al Gore for his dedication to fight against global warming. Movie star Angelina Jolie, who used her celebrity status to draw attention to the need to fight poverty, also found place.