Sonia, PM in top 20 most powerful people: Forbes

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have been named among the top 20 most powerful persons in the world by Forbes magazine in its annual power rankings which placed United States President Barack Obama as number one for a second year in a row.

India's richest businessman Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and and Arcelor Mittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal also feature in the list that comprises 71 mighty heads of state, CEOs, entrepreneurs and philanthropists who 'truly run and shape the world of 7.1 billion people'.

Gandhi dropped a notch from last year's list and ranks at number 12 this year ahead of Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang and French President Francois Hollande. Forbes said the 65-year-old leader of India's ruling political party has the reins of the world's second-most-populous country and tenth-largest economy.

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"Son Rahul is next in line to take over India's most famous political dynasty," it added. Coming in at the 20th spot is Singh, the Oxford and Cambridge-educated economist who is the architect of India's economic reforms.

Singh had ranked 19th in the list last year. "But Singh's quiet intellectualism is increasingly seen as timid and soft," Forbes added.

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Ambani, owner of the world's most expensive private residence, ranks 37th in the list. Forbes said the petrochemical billionaire is India's richest and Reliance Industries is the nation's most valuable company.

It however described Ambani's support for disgraced former Goldman Sachs Director Rajat Gupta as a 'low point' for him in 2012.

Mittal, ranked 47th in the most powerful people list, has a net worth of $16 billion but also has 'lots of headaches, including S&P and Moody downgrades of his company's debt to junk status'.

A highlight for Mittal during the past year was carrying the Olympic flame in the 2012 Torch Relay.

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Forbes said 51-year-old Obama emerged 'unanimously' as the world's most powerful person for the second year running.

The decisive winner of the 2012 US presidential election, Obama now has four more years to push his agenda even as he faces major challenges, including an unresolved budget crisis, stubbornly high unemployment and renewed unrest in the Middle East.

"But Obama remains the commander-in-chief of the world's greatest military and head of the sole economic and cultural superpower--literally the leader of the free world," it said.

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The second-most powerful person in the world also happens to be the most powerful woman, German chancellor 58-year-old Angela Merkel. She jumped up from the number four position last year to take the runner-up spot on the 2012 list.

Forbes termed Merkel as the backbone of the 27-member European Union, one who carries the fate of the Euro on her shoulders.

The list also includes Russian President Vladimir Putin at number three, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (4), General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping (9), Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin (20), Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei (21) UN chief Ban Ki-moon (30), North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (44) and former US President Bill Clinton (50).

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Forbes dropped US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the list this year. Clinton, who had ranked 16th last year, does not feature in 2012 rankings as she is not expected to return to her powerful post for Obama's second term.

It is for the same reason that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also does not feature in this year's list. Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is ranked 28th in the list.

"The most powerful man in an unstable country; Pakistan's de facto leader controls nuclear weapons and one of the world's largest standing armies.

Despite tension over drone strikes, Kayani remains a key ally in the war on terror," Forbes said, adding that a low point for Kayani this past year came when the country's supreme court issued a series of rulings holding the military accountable for human rights abuses and political meddling.

Zaheer ul-Islam, the head of Pakistan's notorious intelligence service Inter-Services Intelligence, has been ranked 52nd on the list.

"The ISI has played both sides in the war on terror and, as US troops draw out of Afghanistan, will be hugely influential in determining the region's future," Forbes said.

Islam's high point in 2012 was his first official visit to the US for talks with then counterpart in Central Intelligence Agency General David Petraeus.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who came in at the 25th spot, is one of the youngest persons on the list at age 29. He dropped significantly from last year's top-ten ranking after Facebook's much-anticipated IPO turned out to be a flop.

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Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff (18) is one of the list's biggest gainers. At the midpoint of her first term, Rousseff's emphasis on entrepreneurship has prompted a slew of new startups and energised Brazilian youths, Forbes said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook (35) made a big upward move too. A year after he succeeded iconic founder Steve Jobs, the company is the most valuable in the world and Apple stock hit an all-time high in September, reaching above $700 a share.

New members of the list include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman who is ranked 71. Forbes said Hoffman is the world's most powerful venture capitalist and the most-connected man in Silicon Valley. Making his debut on the list at rank 66 is Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind PayPal and Tesla Motors who is the most powerful man in space.

"His company SpaceX is a leader in the private space industry, and with that business set to boom, Musk stands to make out like a 19th-century railway tycoon," Forbes added.

In compiling the list, Forbes considered hundreds of candidates from various walks of life all around the globe. It took into consideration factors including whether the candidate has power over lots of people, the financial resources controlled by each person, whether they are powerful in multiple spheres and the active use of the candidates' power.

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