New York, Apr 18: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been named among the 100 most influential people in the world by the prestigious Time magazine in its 2012 list which also includes US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire investor Warren Buffet.
 Apart from Banerjee, advocate Anjali Gopalan, who works for the rights of gays and the transgendered in India, is the only other Indian in the list released by the magazine today.
 The 2012 list is topped by American basketball sensation Jeremy Lin. 
 In recent days, Banerjee's government has been criticised for choice of newspapers for state and state-aided libraries and a professor's arrest over circulation of a cartoon featuring the chief minister.
 Time said Banerjee, 57, spent years struggling on the margins but ultimately she proved to be the "consummate politician."
 "Though much of Indian society remains hidebound in patriarchy and tradition, strong women still prevail in the nation's political life.
 Mamata Banerjee rose to the fore last year when she and a movement she built from the grassroots wrested control of her home state of West Bengal, ending three and a half decades of sclerotic communist rule," Time said.
 Referred to by her supporters as 'Didi', Banerjee was labelled by critics as a "mercurial oddball and a shrieking street fighter".

Lastupdate on : Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST