In its early days : - Charles Lindbergh; Walter
Chrysler; Owen D. Young; Mahatma Gandhi; Pierre Laval; Franklin D. Roosevelt;
Hugh S. Johnson…… and more recently - Vladimir Putin; Barack Obama; Ben
Bernanke; Mark Zuckerberg ….. do you know what connects or brackets them
together ….
Person of the
Year
(formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States news
magazine “Time” that features and
profiles a person, group, idea or object that "for better or for
worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year". The tradition of selecting a "Man of the
Year" began in 1927, with Time editors contemplating news makers of the
year. Since then, individual people,
classes of people, the computer ("Machine of the Year" in 1982), and
"Endangered Earth" ("Planet of the Year" in 1988) have all
been selected for the special year-end issue. Despite the magazine's frequent
statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honour, and
spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of
admirable people – though the Magazine has had some controversial figures too.
In 1999, the title was changed
to Person of the Year. Women who have been selected for recognition after the
renaming include "The Whistleblowers" (Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley
and Sherron Watkins in 2002) and Melinda Gates (jointly with Bill Gates and
Bono, in 2005). Since the list began,
every serving President of the United States has been a Person of the Year at
least once with very few
exceptions. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the
only person to have received the title three times, first as President-elect
(1932) and later as the incumbent President (1934 and 1941).
After a
glorious debut on the Forbes list of Most Powerful People in the World, Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi may well be on his way to clinching the
most-coveted Time 'Person of the Year' title for 2014. Our reverred Prime
Minister Narendra Modi is among 50 global leaders, business chiefs and pop
icons named as contenders by Time magazine for its annual 'Person of the Year'
honour. The Time 'Person of
the Year 2014' will be announced next month.
Time has asked its readers to
vote for the individual who they think should get the title of Person of the
Year and the winner of the reader's choice poll will be announced next month
before Time's editors choose the individual from the 50 candidates as the
honouree. A report states that as on 20th Nov 2014, Narendra Modi has so far got 3.8 per cent of
the votes, the fourth highest after Russian President Vladimir Putin, teenage
Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai and Ebola doctors and
nurses "who are risking their lives to treat and contain the outbreak in
the hot zone". Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 6, and the combined
winner of our reader polls will be announced on Dec. 8. TIME’s Person of the
Year will be announced Dec. 10.
In a separate
"Face-off" poll, Modi has been pitted against Indonesia's new
president Joko Widodo. The other candidates in the fray for the
'Person of the Year' title are US President Barack Obama, Iran's Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IS chief Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, US Secretary of State John
Kerry and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Among the business chiefs
and artists in the fray are Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Chinese e-commerce site
Alibaba founder Jack Ma, auto major GM's first female CEO Mary Barra, Apple CEO
Tim Cook and singers Beyonce, Taylor Swift, reality star Kim Kardashian and
actress Jennifer Lawrence. Last year's 'Person of the Year', Pope Francis, is
also among the candidates along with the 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by
Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
Charles Lindbergh (1927)
was the first, and the youngest, person to receive the distinction. He was 25
years old. Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson,
the woman whom English King Edward VIII abdicated in order to marry, was the
first woman to receive the honour (1936).
In 2011, it was not any single person but ‘Protesters’. No one could
have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public
square, it would incite protests that would topple dictators and start a global
wave of dissent. In 2011, protesters didn't just voice their complaints; they
changed the world is what Times had to say ! .. it went on to say - Once upon a
time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and
printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses,
protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes
took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the
very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential. "Massive and effective street
protest" was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — it became the defining trope of our times.
And the protester once again became a maker of history. In Egypt the
incitements were a preposterously fraudulent 2010 national election and, as in
Tunisia, a not uncommon act of unforgivable brutality by security agents. In
the U.S., three acute and overlapping money crises — tanked economy, systemic
financial recklessness, gigantic public debt — along with ongoing revelations
of double dealing by banks, new state laws making certain public-employee-union
demands illegal and the refusal of Congress to consider even slightly higher
taxes on the very highest incomes mobilized Occupy Wall Street and its millions
of supporters. In Russia it was the realization that another six (or 12) years
of Vladimir Putin might not lead to greater prosperity and democratic
normality. The stakes are very different in different places. In North America
and most of Europe, there are no dictators, and dissidents don't get tortured.
So will it be
“Narendra Modi’ – the coveted face of Time magazine as ‘Time Person of the Year
2014’ ? …. We look forward to that.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
21st Nov
2014
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