Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who did not make it to the final eight selected by TIME for the annual 'Person of the Year' title, has been hailed as one by its readers in an online poll conducted by the publication. Let's take a look at the 10 names that forced Modi out of reckoning for the title.
Ferguson protesters
Protesters in Ferguson, who were demonstrating against a grand jury's decision not to indict white police officer Darren Wilson who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in August ranked second with 9 per cent of the votes.
Joshua Wong
With his thick spectacles, a bowl-like haircut and a seemingly bemused expression, he looks like an average geek. But this 17-year-old who has only just left school to pursue a degree in politics and public administration became a revered figure for people much older than him, and somewhat of a political prodigy in Hong Kong.
Joshua Wong is third in this list for risking his life claiming the future rights of his generation, and becoming the face of Hong Kong’s democracy protests at such a young age.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala, who was nominated in the Nobel peace prize category last year also, had displayed tremendous courage even after the Taliban attack when she resolutely expressed her determination to carry on with her campaign for child rights and girls education especially in a country like Pakistan.
Malala, at 17, became the youngest person to become a Nobel laureate.
Ebola doctors and nurses
Thousands of health workers and nurses are risking their lives to contain and treat the deadly outbreak of Ebola in West African countries.
These people represent those hundreds of healthcare givers who left their loved ones behind and served the epidemic stricken countries in West Africa, despite knowing the consequences of the deadly infection.
Vladimir Putin
The Russian president has repeatedly opposed the United States and its allies on the international stage, besides fuelling a bloody war in western Ukraine. And if that was not all, his backing of Syria’s President basher al-Assad has set the clock back to Cold War days.
Laverne Cox
Cox is the first ever transgendered person to be nominated for an Emmy Award for teleseries Orange Is The New Black, and also the first person from her community to be on the cover of Time magazine. Cox used her role in the series as a launching pad for activism.
Joko Widodo
According to the Time magazine, the president of Indonesia, a former furniture salesman known as Jokowi, is the country’s first leader to not come from the elite.
Pope Francis
According to Time, the 2013 Person of the Year used his second year in papacy to advance internal Vatican reforms, push for peace in the Middle East, raise the church’s profile in Asia and shift the Vatican’s tone on divorce and homosexuality.
Chibok girls
The plight of the more than 200 girls who were kidnapped by the Islamist terrorist Boko Haram drew international attention to the threat of extremism in Nigeria – and the world’s failure to oppose it, the Time says.