Gautam Adani, Jailed J&K Activist Khurram Parvez, Zelenskyy in TIME 100 List

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy, and Jammu and Kashmir activist Khurram Parvez are among the few prominent Indian names to feature in TIME’s list of 100 most influential people of 2022 which was released by the magazine on Monday, 23 May,

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin also feature on the list.

Justice Umar Ata Bandial, the current Chief Justice of Pakistan, also features on the list.

‘He Is the Story and the Storyteller of Insurgency and Betrayal of Kashmiris'

Writing Parvez’s profile, journalist Rana Ayyub said, “He had to be silenced, for his was a voice that resounded around the globe for his fierce fight against human-rights violations and injustices in the Kashmir region.”

Parvez, who serves as the chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, was arrested in November last year.

Ayyub added:

"The arrest came almost a year after India revoked the special status given to Kashmir and detained hundreds who protested in the streets. It was not the first time that Parvez was forcibly silenced. The attacks against him speak volumes of the truth he represents at a time when the world’s largest democracy is being called out for its persecution of the more than 200 million Indian Muslims.”

“The soft-spoken Khurram is almost a modern-day David who gave a voice to families that lost their children to enforced disappearances, allegedly by the Indian state. Khurram is the story and the storyteller of the insurgency and the betrayal of the people of Kashmir,” she added.

'A Champion of Women’s Rights'

Writing Nundy’s profile, Menaka Guruswamy, Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court, said, “Often the legal world is seen as an insular realm of stiff shirts and dry arguments. Karuna Nundy, however, is not just a lawyer but also a public activist who ably – and bravely – uses her voice both inside and outside the courtroom to bring about change.”

“She is a champion of women’s rights who has advocated for the reform of antirape laws and fought cases relating to sexual harassment in the workplace. Most recently, she is litigating a challenge to India’s rape law that contains a legal exemption for marital rape,” Guruswamy added.

She added, “Karuna also takes great pains to explain legal issues in a way that engages the media and public. She can discuss the law simply and deftly. By doing so she creates an accessible discourse about rights in a time when those rights are at risk.”

'Adani’s Journey May Have Only Just Begun'

On billionaire Gautam Adani, Debasish Roy Chowdhury, co-author of To Kill a Democracy: India’s Passage to Despotism, wrote, “When Narendra Modi flew into New Delhi after being elected Prime Minister in 2014, he raised a few eyebrows landing in a private jet emblazoned with the word Adani, the eponymous business group from his home state Gujarat. Founder Gautam Adani’s career was about to take off.”

Roy Chowdhury added, “Adani’s once regional business now spans airports, private ports, solar and thermal power, and consumer goods. Adani Group is now a national behemoth in the world’s sixth largest economy, though Adani stays out of the public eye, quietly building his empire.”

“Critics attribute his meteoric rise to his proximity to Modi, whose government is apparently following a policy of creating “national champions,” like Adani, showering business enterprises with favours to help them become global leaders. Like many countries that have in the past created global conglomerates this way, India is also undergoing an unprecedented concentration of economic and political power that reinforce one another. If Modi symbolises the second, Adani is the poster boy of the first, as he competes with Warren Buffett to be the world’s fifth richest person. With Modi’s stated goal of making India a $5 trillion economy by 2025, Adani’s journey may have only just begun,” he added.

See the Full List Here:

1. Simu Liu

2. Andrew Garfield

3. Zoë Kravitz

4. Sarah Jessica Parker

5. Amanda Seyfried

6. Quinta Brunson

7. Pete Davidson

8. Channing Tatum

9. Nathan Chen

10. Mila Kunis

11. Jeremy Strong

12. Faith Ringgold

13. Ariana DeBose

14. Jazmine Sullivan

15. Michael R Jackson

16. Zendaya

17. Taika Waititi

18. Miranda Lambert

19. Derrick Palmer

20. Chris Smalls

21. Josh Wardle

22. Michelle Zauner

23. Demna

24. Timnit Gebru

25. Mike Cannon-Brookes

26. Bela Bajaria

27. Sevgil Musaieva

28. Francis Kéré

29. David Vélez

30. Michael Schatz

31. Karen Miga

32. Evan Eichler

33. Adam Phillippy

34. Tim Cook

35. Oprah Winfrey

36. Christine Lagarde

37. Michelle Yeoh

38. Gautam Adani

39. Kris Jenner

40. Andy Jassy

41. Sally Rooney

42. Hwang Dong-hyuk

43. Sam Bankman-Fried

44. Megan Rapinoe

45. Becky Sauerbrunn

46. Alex Morgan

47. Elizabeth Alexander

48. David Zaslav

49. Mia Mottley

50. Volodymyr Zelenskyy

51. Ketanji Brown Jackson

52. Joe Rogan

53. Xi Jinping

54. Ursula von der Leyen

55. Ron DeSantis

56. Joe Biden

57. Yoon Suk-yeol

58. Vladimir Putin

59. Olaf Scholz

60. Samia Suluhu Hassan

61. Kevin McCarthy

62. Karuna Nundy

63. Abiy Ahmed

64. Kyrsten Sinema

65. Gabriel Boric

66. Khurram Parvez

67. Letitia James

68. Valeriy Zaluzhnyy

69. Lynn Fitch

70. Umar Ata Bandial

71. Sun Chunlan

72. Mary J Blige

73. Dmitry Muratov

74. Issa Rae

75. Keanu Reeves

76. Adele

77. Rafael Nadal

78. Maya Lin

79. Jon Batiste

80. Nadine Smith

81. Peng Shuai

82. Hoda Khamosh

83. Candace Parker

84. Frances Haugen

85. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson

86. Sônia Guajajara

87. Stéphane Bancel

88. Emily Oster

89. Valérie Masson-Delmotte

90. Panmao Zhai

91. Eileen Gu

92. Tulio de Oliveira

93. Sikhulile Moyo

94. Nan Goldin

95. Mazen Darwish

96. Anwar Al Bunni

97. Emmett Schelling

98. Cristina Villarreal Velásquez

99. Ana Cristina González Vélez

100. Gregory L Robinson