Manmohan Singh
AGE: 74
OCCUPATION: Prime Minister of India
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 1
PRO: Oxbridge-educated politician who seeded India's economic renaissance when he pushed through a series of reforms while finance minister in the early 90s. Now as head of the world's largest democracy, he leads an emerging power that is considered by the U.S. to be a key counterbalance to China's regional dominance.
CON: His party depends on a fragile coalition of fractious regional powers with competing agendas and ideologies. And even in his Congress party, true power resides with its political chief, Sonia Gandhi.