Ashwini Vaishnaw, Anil Kapoor are among Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in AI
New York, Sep 6: Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and actor Anil Kapoor are among Indians who have been honoured in Time magazine's prestigious list of the 100 "Most Influential People in AI 2024".
The list, released on Thursday, features 15 Indian or Indian-origin people. Among them are Sundar Pichai of Google, and Satya Nadella of Microsoft.
Writing about 54-year-old Vaishnaw, the magazine said under his leadership, India hopes to become one of the top five countries for semiconductor manufacturing-a key component for modern AI systems within the next five years.
"Yet, Vaishnaw faces significant challenges in realising these ambitions. India's tech sector struggles with low private R&D investment and a lack of advanced manufacturing ecosystems. Its educational system is also catching up to produce the specialised workforce needed for cutting-edge AI and semiconductor development," it said.
India- the world’s fifth largest economy- is trying to become a major player in the world of AI, it said.
Kapoor, 67, has been included in Time’s AI list after a landmark victory in September 2023 over unauthorised AI use of his likeness.
The actor took up the case after a large number of distorted videos, gifs, and emojis bearing his likeness began circulating online.
Nilekani, 69, is Co-founder of Infosys and co-founder & chairman of EkStep.
"Nilekani, the billionaire co-founder of Infosys, has spent fifteen years in and out of government developing digital public infrastructure for the world’s most populous country, earning him nicknames like 'India's Bill Gates'," the magazine wrote about the entrepreneur.
"Nilekani led India’s Aadhaar programme, the world’s largest biometric identity card programme. He promoted the programme as a salve to welfare fraud, alongside a means to help improve tax collection, and ease bank customer verification, among other benefits," the magazine added.
“If the world of AI was dominated by the emergence of startup labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and their competitors in 2023, this year, as critics and champions alike have noted, we’ve seen the outsize influence of a small number of tech giants...," TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs said.
The 2024 TIME100 AI list features 40 CEOs, founders and co-founders, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Pichai of Google, Nadella of Microsoft and Aravind Srinivas of Perplexity among others.
Amba Kak, Co-executive Director, of AI Now Institute, Arati Prabhakar, Director, of the US Office of Science and Technology Policy and Divya Siddarth, Co-founders, of Collective Intelligence Project, were among the women leaders featured in the list.
Other Indians or Indian-origin leaders in AI in the list include Rohit Prasad SVP and head scientist of Artificial General Intelligence, Amazon, Shiv Rao Co-founder and CEO, Abridge, Anant Vijay Singh Product Lead at Proton, Dwarkesh Patel Host, Dwarkesh Podcast, Amandeep Singh Gill, United Nations Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology, and Vinod Khosla, Founder, Khosla Ventures.
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Kerala polls: ‘People rejected 10 years of misrule’, says AICC gen secy
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal on Monday said the Congress-led UDF’s sweeping victory in the Kerala Assembly polls was a clear verdict against the “arrogance”, corruption, and nepotism of the CPI(M)-led LDF government headed by CM Pinarayi Vijayan.
Addressing a press conference as counting of votes for all 140 Assembly constituencies neared completion, Venugopal said the outcome reflected public anger against what he termed “10 years of misrule” by the Left government.
He claimed that Vijayan’s victory in his home constituency, Dharmadam, was “only technical”, alleging that the CM trailed the UDF candidate in the initial rounds of counting and failed to secure a majority in his own village.
“He just escaped. He suffered a setback even in his home turf. He was the only person who did not realise the people’s mood in this election,” Venugopal said.
Alleging that the CPI(M) and the LDF had resorted to “communal and opportunistic politics”, he further claimed that the ruling front had entered into a “secret understanding” with the BJP in a bid to retain power for a third consecutive term.
He said that when a government driven by power and arrogance attempts to align with anyone to stay in office, even its own cadre turns against it.
Referring to the results, Venugopal said that while the UDF expected rebel CPI(M) leaders, including K Kunhikrishnan in Payyannur, to impact the vote share, their victories came as a surprise.
Describing the UDF’s performance as a “historic victory”, he attributed it to coordinated teamwork, grassroots mobilisation, and the dedication of party workers, adding that the alliance accepted the mandate “with humility”.
Venugopal also credited Rahul Gandhi’s campaign guarantees, calling them a “trump card” that helped voters focus on real issues and reject what he described as the LDF’s “false narratives”.
He claimed that the Congress witnessed one of its lowest levels of rebellion in this election, which contributed to the alliance’s strong performance.
The senior Congress leader further alleged that the BJP managed to win two seats with the help of the CPI(M), and asserted that forces attempting to divide society on communal lines should “learn a lesson” from Kerala’s verdict.
“This is the real Kerala story,” he said.
On the question of the next Chief Minister, Venugopal said the party leadership would decide at the earliest after due consultations.
The counting of votes began on Monday morning for all 140 Assembly constituencies in Kerala, where the Congress-led UDF secured a decisive majority, defeating the CPI(M)-led LDF, which was seeking an unprecedented third consecutive term in office.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) posts, "Thank you to my brothers and sisters in Keralam for a truly decisive mandate. Congratulations to every UDF leader and worker for a hard-fought, well-run campaign. As I said before, Keralam has the talent, Keralam has the potential… pic.twitter.com/6T4IZbEmp4
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 4, 2026
