IT czar Narayana Murthy among TIME magazine's "Asian Heroes"

New Delhi, Nov 09: Architects of modern India Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, steel baron Lakshmi Mittal and IT czar Narayana Murthy have been named among TIME magazine``s "Asian Heroes" in its forthcoming 60th anniversary issue.

"For six decades, Time has chronicled the triumphs and travails of Asia. In this special anniversary issue, we pay tribute to the remarkable men and women who have shaped these times," the magazine says. The anniversary edition will be available on November 13.

Terming Gandhi and Nehru as opposite in nature, the magazine says "they shared a passion for freedom and justice, and together created a giant of democracy".

"Gandhi``s unique method of resistance through civil disobedience, allied to a talent for organisation, gave the Indian nationalist movement both a saint and a strategist."

"The principal pillars of Nehru``s legacy-democratic institution-building, staunch pan-Indian secularism, socialist economics at home and a foreign policy of nonalignment-were all integral to a vision of Indianness that sustained the nation for decades," the magazine says.

Other prominent figures in the list include - Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen, Burma``s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and her father Aung San, Thailand``s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, China``s Deng Xiaoping, Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, Sufi singing legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pakistan``s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, martial arts exponent Bruce Lee, mountaineers Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, Mother Teresa, this year``s Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and writer Salman Rushdie.

Tendulkar has been described as the "greatest living exponent of his craft".

"When he``s in form, which is often, Tendulkar can rout the world``s best bowlers with ease."

About Mittal, chief executive officer of Arcelor Mittal, the magazine writes: "His boldness and spectacular wealth reflect India``s growing financial might."

TIME pays its tribute to Sen saying he is a "philosopher and economist who preaches tolerance to a divided world".

On Narayana Murthy, it writes, "From a Bombay bedsit, he launched an economic revolution. His wildly successful company - Infosys - had laid the groundwork for the business process-outsourcing- that defines globalisation in action."

Bureau Report

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