Seven Indians among world's top 100 intellectuals

An influential American magazine has listed more than half a dozen Indians, including Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and novelist Salman Rushdie, in a list of the world's 'top 100 public intellectuals'.

Apart from Sen and Rushdie, journalist-author Fareed Zakaria and San Diego-based neuroscientist V S Ramachandran are among seven Indians featuring on the list compiled by Foreign Policy magazine.

Besides them, historian Ramachandra Guha, political psychologist Ashis Nandy and environmentalist Sunita Narain, all of whom live in India, have also been identified among the world's top intellectuals.

The largest chunk of the list, which features popular names like Al Gore and Noam Chomsky, comprises North Americans, with 36 of the total 100 names hailing from the continent.

Europe has 30 of its own top brains featuring on the list while Asia has 12, half of whom are Indians.
    
Pakistani lawyer-politician Aitzaz Ahsan, who led the lawyers' movement against President Musharraf after the imposition of emergency in the country last year, is the lone Pakistani on the list, while micro-finance guru Mohammad Yunus is the only Bangladeshi.
    
The list comprises some of the world's best known political scientists, economists, philosophers, scientists, journalists and environmentalists.

Describing the criteria for selecting the world's 'most sophisticated thinkers', the magazine says, 'Candidates must be living and still active in public life. They must have shown distinction in their particular field as well as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of their own country.'