கோடிக்கணக்கான ரூபாவைச் செலவிட்டு ஒமாபாவை முந்திய ராஜபக்சே

உலகின் சக்திவாய்ந்த நூறு தலைவர்களின் பட்டியலை டைம்ஸ் பத்திரிகை வெளியிட்டுள்ளது.  

டைம்ஸ் பத்திரிகையின்  2011ம் வருடத்தின் உலகின் செல்வாக்குமிக்க பிரபலங்கள்  பட்டியலில் இலங்கை அதிபர் ராஜபக்சே   இடம்பெற்றுள்ளார்.

பட்டியலில் இடம்பெறுவதற்காக ஜனாதிபதியின் நம்பிக்கைக்குரிய பாராளுமன்ற உறுப்பினர் சஜின் வாஸ் குணவர்த்தன வழியாக கோடிக்கணக்கான ரூபாவைச் செலவிட்டே ராஜபக்சே அப்பட்டியலில் இடம்பிடித்துள்ளதாகவும் தகவல்கள் வெளியாகியுள்ளன. 

ராஜபக்சே,  அமெரிக்க அதிபர் பராக் ஒபாமாவையும் பின்தள்ளி 10 ம் இடத்தைப் பிடித்திருக்கிறார்.   ஒபாமா 44ம் இடத்தில்  இருக்கின்றார் !

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has spent millions of rupees from a secret account, on Time Poll 

President Mahninda Rajapaksa has spent millions of rupees from a secret account entitled to him

through his office in order to come among the top 100 powerful persons selected through an e-mail vote by the TIME magazine, reliable sources told Lanka News Web. end: This is the current votes update. 58170 Votes: Influential 16683 Votes: Not Influential  Some of the Tamils by mistake would have voted YES. Many Tamils have ignored to vote. Singhala social sites have been working hard on this for 48 hours, including some Colombo Rotary Clubs, and Sri Lankan
High Commissions all over the world. Rajapakse is # 23 in the influential poll poll. Then again, Pressident Rajapakse is having all the negative attention which many leaders do not suffer from. Such as his disastrous trip to Oxford, War Criminal investigations, by th US State Dept. and the special investigative !

The 2011 TIME 100 Poll :Cast your votes for the leaders, artists, innovators, icons and heroes that you think are the most influential people in the world. The winner will be included in the TIME 100. Voting closes on April 14.

1.Rain Age: 28  Occupation: Pop star  Previous TIME 100 appearances: 1

This South Korean sensation has been making waves in his native country for years, but his catchy beats and hot dance moves have made his popularity soar internationally. Who can forget that dance-off with Stephen Colbert, or his parts in the movies Speed Racer and Ninja Assassin? His army of fans helped him stay on top of this poll last year; let's see if there's still enough love to keep him on top today.

2.Jay Chou :Age: 32 Occupation: Director, singer, songwriter Move over, Jay-Z: Jay Chou is in the house. The Taiwanese director-singer-songwriter has already conquered Asia with his sweet tunes and sultry style. Now he's set his sights on America, bringing "Chou style" to the silver screen as Kato in the blockbuster The Green Hornet. We know MTV has been charmed — the network nominated him for Best Breakout Star. This may be the year he wins Hollywood's heart too.

3,Susan Boyle : Age: 50 Occupation: Singer Boyle certainly couldn't have dreamed the dream she's been living since she showed off her pipes and stunned the skeptical judges on Britain's Got Talent two years ago. The journey from anonymity to stardom has brought her two multiplatinum No. 1 albums, a book deal and an exhaustive media tour across the world. In a culture obsessed with vanity and beauty, Boyle's fame is a victory for genuine talent. Though her looks have been touched up since her initial appearance on Talent, this real-life Cinderella is poised to continue her ascent to fame, already garnering nods in South Park and The Simpsons.

4.Cheng Yen : Age: 73 Occupation: Buddhist nun and philanthropist

Cheng Yen is known as the Chinese world's Mother Teresa. She runs the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, one of Asia's largest charities. Earthquakes, floods, typhoons, famine, tsunamis, you name it — Tzu Chi people are there dispensing food, blankets and warm clothing (as they have done recently in Japan), and also committing long-term by rebuilding villages, establishing clinics and schools and providing scholarships to needy students. The foundation is based in Hualien on Taiwan's east coast, but has chapters worldwide. Cheng Yen's reputation is such that the group is allowed everywhere, even into hermetic North Korea and conflict zones like Afghanistan. Tzu Chi is well funded by millions of donors, including a few tycoons who want her blessing, but there has never been any hint of impropriety.

5.Beyoncé : Age: 29 Occupation: Singer

This year the awe-inspiring singer turns 30, and she has plenty to show for it. With 16 Grammy wins — six of which she took home in 2010 for her hit album I Am Sasha Fierce and singles including "Halo" and "Single Ladies" — she can claim more Grammys than superstars like Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion and Tina Turner can. And even in spite of her megawatt fame and marriage to rapper and mogul Jay-Z, Beyoncé has, for the most part, managed to keep her personal life out of the tabloids.

6.Chris Colfer : Age: 20  Occupation: Actor

Chris Colfer certainly impressed producers when he auditioned for the television show Glee: they created a part especially for him. Playing the openly gay teen Kurt Hummel has not only earned Colfer (who's openly gay himself) a huge fan base, but it's also earned him awards. And it was during his acceptance of the latter that he was able to give a shout-out to the former. After receiving the 2011 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a series, miniseries or TV film, Colfer gave his own personal It Gets Better message to his fans, who like him, faced bullying because of who they were; he held up his award in their honor.

7.Christopher Hitchens : Age: 61 Occupation: Writer, atheist

When Christopher Hitchens, the acerbic author of dozens of books including God Is Not Great, revealed last October that he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, believers of all faiths prayed for his health — and his salvation. The staunch atheist responded that he was grateful for the good wishes and hoped that praying for him made the faithful feel better. Hitchens continues to write with searing wit about the disease, and he's recently begun an experimental treatment developed by a former sparring partner and now friend, geneticist Dr. Francis Collins, author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

8.Bradley Manning : Age: 23  Occupation: U.S. soldier

Without Bradley Manning, you're unlikely ever to have heard of Julian Assange. It was Manning's alleged leak of more than a quarter of a million classified U.S. diplomatic cables that turned WikiLeaks into a household name and Assange into the bête noire of government secrecy. Manning allegedly got access to the documents while on a tour of duty in Iraq. Needless to say, the military frowns on that sort of thing, and Manning is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Va., pending court martial. Meanwhile, publicly questioning the harsh conditions of Manning's incarceration cost State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley his job.

9.Glenn Beck : Age: 47  Occupation: Conservative pundit, media entrepreneur

Glenn Beck's cable ratings may be falling, but his vast media influence is still going strong. Between his 5 p.m. Fox News perch, a widely syndicated radio show, a news website, an online university, political novels, rallies and more, Beck commands an industry of conservative opinion worth tens of millions of dollars each year. And with regimes falling in the Middle East, multiple American wars abroad, WikiLeaks, stubborn unemployment, rising gas prices and another presidential race just around the corner, there'll be no shortage of fodder for his potent brand of paranoid punditry in the year 2011.

10. Mahinda Rajapaksa : Age: 65  Occupation: President of Sri Lanka

Since ending Sri Lanka's 26-year-long war against the Tamil Tigers in 2009, and grabbing control over once independent institutions like commissions on human rights and elections, Mahinda Rajapaksa has come to dominate the institutions of his nation more than any other democratically elected head of state. He challenged the U.S., the European Union and the U.N. to prosecute him for war crimes, confident that Russia, China and India would not support it — the latter two have billions of investment at stake in Sri Lanka.

11.Julian Assange : Age: 39  Occupation: Co-founder and public face of WikiLeaks

A sort of Robin Hood of the information age, Julian Assange acquires secret and often controversial documents from government and corporate sources and then releases them to the public. Not universally admired, and facing sex-crime charges in Sweden, Assange has nevertheless drawn the admiration of many for his flinty belief in the value of transparency. Under house arrest in Britain since mid-December, he is currently fighting a ruling by a British court in February in favor of his extradition to Sweden. He also faces possible prosecution in the U.S. following the publication of classified material from the State Department and the Pentagon on the WikiLeaks website.

12. Lady Gaga :  Age: 25  Occupation: Singer

To gauge Lady Gaga's influence, just look at the numbers. In the past year, the singer became the first artist to reach 1 billion views on YouTube and gain 10 million fans on Facebook. In between grabbing headlines for her sartorial choices like the infamous meat dress, Lady Gaga leveraged her fame for advocacy work too. Last December, the pop star took to Twitter to lobby for the repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell," encouraging her followers to call Senate majority leader Harry Reid. Her third album, titled Born This Way, will be released in May.

13.Ron Paul  :Age: 75 Occupation: Texas Congressman in the House of Representatives

Twelve-term Republican Congressman Ron Paul is a libertarian icon, an anti-war gadfly, a master of the online money bomb and a perpetual front runner in CPAC straw polls. But despite his ability to excite the conservative base, in his two bids for the presidency, he never emerged as a credible contender. This year, with a thin Republican field, the Tea Party favorite may opt to try again — and he could find that the third time's the charm.

14.The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Workers :Occupations: Employees at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant

Since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan on March 11, the world has lauded Japanese citizens for their stalwart demeanor in the face of an unprecedented triptych of deadly disasters. But few have inspired more respect than the workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As the plant's cooling systems started to fail and radiation levels began to rise, these employees continued to work to repair the plant, at grave personal risk. Three weeks later, hundreds are still there, braving high radiation levels and living in spartan conditions. All who have read about their selfless commitment have asked themselves the same question: Would I do it? The answer most of us arrive at is why these workers will be remembered for generations

15.Tawakul Karman : Age: 32 Occupation: Human-rights activist

This 32-year-old mother of three is an unlikely activist. But as the chair of Women Journalists Without Chains — a Yemeni group that defends freedom of expression — she has been protesting at Sana'a University, in the nation's capital, every Tuesday since 2007. Her aim: to pressure Yemen's President of 32 years, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to step down. Though she's been arrested several times, she remains an advocate for peaceful change, inspired by the success of democratic movements in Tunisia and Egypt. But as Yemen heads into its third month of violent protests, a peaceful transition to democracy remains elusive.

16.Mohamed Bouazizi :Age: 26 Occupation: Fruit and vegetable seller

Bouazizi was literally the spark that set off the revolutions of the Arab Spring. The sole support for his mother and his seven siblings, he was humiliated and abused by a policewoman in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. She confiscated the fruit and vegetable cart with which he made his living. Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of the local government building. Fatally burned, he lingered for more than two weeks even as immense popular anger grew around Tunisia, fed by Facebook and other social media. When Bouazizi died, the authoritarian government of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali would find itself with just 10 days to survive as the first of the revolutions to convulse the region sent the dictator fleeing.

17.Wisconsin's 'Fab 14' State Senators : Occupation: Wisconsin state senators

They've revolutionized the very concept of the filibuster. Presented with a state budget plan that limited the rights of public employees, 14 Democratic members of the Wisconsin state senate, recognizing that they were outgunned in the chamber, decided their best course of action was to pick up and leave the state with the aim of forcing a compromise. You can't have a vote if you don't have a quorum. When their 22-day adventure came to an end they returned to Madison, they became a flash point for both union rights and austerity in debt-ridden America. Derided as the "most shameful 14 people in the state of Wisconsin" by the Republican state senate majority leader, they also became folk heroes on the left. Pins were printed in their honor, and people even learned their lawmakers' names.

18.Han Han :Age: 28 Occupation: Race-car driver, author, singer, blogger

The most versatile and most popular celebrity in China, Han Han adroitly criticizes the country's foibles, including Internet restrictions, without getting into too much trouble. Fame can be a shield. But it does not guarantee success. In 2009, he made an online solicitation for articles for a magazine he wanted to start. The first issue of Party was finally published in 2010 and immediately shot to the top of the best-seller list on Amazon.com in China. However, booksellers had trouble with some of Party's content; Han had trouble finding another company willing to print the magazine, which never saw a second edition.

19.Rihanna : Age: 23 Occupation: Singer

Rihanna has had eight No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and has become the hip-hop world's go-to siren whenever a rap star needs someone to sing his chorus. You can hear her on Kanye West's "All of the Lights" and Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie," as well as her own hits "Only Girl (In the World)" and "What's My Name?" The Barbados-born recording artist has managed to hold her own in the male-dominated rap world while also dabbling in pure, feminine pop.

20.Dan Savage and Terry Miller :Ages: Savage, 46; Miller, 40 Occupations: Founders of the It Gets Better Project

Saddened by the suicide of Indiana teenager Billy Lucas, columnist Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller posted a video on YouTube in late 2010 to support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids who face bullying and discrimination because of their perceived sexuality. Savage and Miller's message: While it may be difficult to imagine a brighter future from the depths of adolescence — which can be a torment even for kids without conflicts over their sexuality — things do, eventually, get better. Since then, the couple has founded the It Gets Better Project, in which some 10,000 people around the world, from President Barack Obama to Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn, have posted messages of support or inspiring stories of how they overcame their own youthful traumas. As if a project that can help prevent at-risk kids from ending their lives needs any further validation, there's a meme-affirming spoof: a video of an over-the-hill gay-bashing jock who reminds would-be bullies, "It gets worse."

21.Alan Mulally : Age: 65 Occupation: CEO, Ford Motor Co.

When Alan Mulally took over at Ford Motor Co. in September 2006, the company was solvent but reeling. Ford had two things going for it: $22 billion in borrowed money and Mulally. The former Boeing executive used the money to pay for plant closures and fund retiree health care benefits while at the same time reinventing the way Ford designed and manufactured automobiles. Ford emphasized lean, global production, common parts and uncommon quality, as evidenced by the 2012 Focus, which was created in Europe but sells in 120 markets. Ford earned $6.6 billion last year, its best showing in a decade.

22.Mohamed ElBaradei : Age: 68 Occupation: Egyptian democracy advocate and possible presidential candidate, retired head of the International Atomic Energy Agency

After his return to Egypt in 2010, Nobel laureate and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei was the preeminent elder statesman championing change in one of the region's longest-running dictatorships. First hailed as a possible challenger to President Hosni Mubarak, ElBaradei helped fuel the Twitter and Facebook rebellion that younger Egyptians eventually seized to bring an end to Mubarak's oppressive regime. ElBaradei's influence has since died down, but he remains rooted among Egypt's political opposition, challenging the decisions of the new status quo — a military-led interim government — as Egypt fitfully struggles toward a democratic future.

23.Aamir Khan : Age: 45 Occupation: Actor, producer

Aamir Khan started out in Bollywood as a handsome, likable star from a family of film producers. While still at the peak of his career as an actor, he has successfully reinvented himself as a producer, encouraging out-of-the-box movies. In 2009, he starred in and co-produced Bollywood's biggest-ever commercial hit, 3 Idiots, and last year he produced the critically acclaimed Peepli Live, a satire on farmer suicides that made a profit without any top stars.

24.Gabrielle Giffords : Age: 39 Occupation: Arizona Congresswoman in the House of Representatives

Gabrielle Giffords' survival of a gunshot wound to the head, sustained during the Jan. 8 massacre in Tucson, Ariz., was called a miracle. For many, she exemplifies the healing power of determination and courage. Doctors who were initially unsure that she would ever breathe on her own again, let alone talk or walk, now say she may be able to attend the April launch of the final space-shuttle mission, which her husband Mark Kelly will captain.

25.Wael Ghonim : Age: 30 Occupation: Google executive and Egyptian-democracy activist

Wael Ghonim has updated the revolutionary adage that when history can't be written with the pen, it must be written with the rifle. The Facebook social movement started by Ghonim to protest the police murder of Internet activist Khaled Saeed lit the spark that started the Tahrir Square demonstrations and ultimately brought down Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. In an interview he gave upon his release after 11 days in detention, he humbly but passionately articulated the demand for freedom, striking an emotional chord that boosted the protest movement into a force Mubarak could not resist.

26.Mark Zuckerberg : Age: 26 Occupation: Founder and CEO of Facebook

As the brain behind the social-media giant, Facebook's 26-year-old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had a year filled with high highs and low lows. Facebook itself reached a new milestone — 500 million users and counting — while Zuckerberg seemed to spend the year fending off attacks about his personality and business style fueled by The Social Network, a scathing Hollywoodized account of the site's founding based on Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires. Still, as Facebook continues to insinuate itself into every corner of our Internet experience, the company's $2 billion projected revenue for 2010 will outweigh any number of privacy concerns. For his continued innovation of our social experience, TIME even named Zuckerberg its 2010 Person of the Year, making him one of the youngest recipients ever of the title.

27.Mara Brock Akil : Age: 40 Occupation: TV writer and producer

Having honed her writing chops on sitcoms like The Jamie Foxx Show and Moesha, Mara Brock Akil struck out on her own with the UPN (later to become the CW) series Girlfriends and its football spin-off The Game. Her shows, starring almost entirely African-American cast members, offer a rare glimpse into the lives of middle- and upper-middle-class black adults dealing with love, family and career issues. When Girlfriends was unceremoniously canceled in 2008, despite strong ratings, Akil focused her energy on The Game, developing a loyal, though not ratings-busting, audience. In 2009, when the CW decided to also drop that show, petitions and fan groups sprung up in attempts to revive it, and Akil and members of the cast campaigned on the show's behalf. In April 2010, BET announced that it would produce new episodes of the series. Its Jan. 11 premiere was the talk of social media with results to back it up: the episode drew 7.7 million viewers, making it the biggest ad-supported sitcom telecast in the history of cable.

28.Al-Jazeera : Age: 14 Occupation: Qatar-based global news network

During the events of the so-called Arab Spring, no station covered itself in greater glory than the English- and Arabic-language channels of al-Jazeera. In the past the network funded by Qatar's petrodollars has been the object of derision by hawks in Washington wary of its supposed anti-American bias. But al-Jazeera's subversive zeal and superior resources in the Middle East saw millions of people around the world flocking to its coverage of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region. Its reporters, not least chief Cairo correspondent Ayman Mohyedlin, outshone most of their counterparts in the Western press corps and — if Mohyedlin's appearance on The Colbert Report is anything to go by — are finally receiving a bit of justified attention and respect in the U.S.

29.Michelle Obama : Age: 47 Occupation: First Lady of the United States

The morning after President Barack Obama hosted Chinese President Hu Jintao for an official visit and state dinner in January, there seemed to be more chatter about the red dress Michelle Obama had worn the previous evening than about Hu or China — or President Obama, for that matter. Commentators both inside and outside the fashion world wondered if it had been appropriate for the First Lady to wear a non-American designer for an official state dinner (the dress was made by the house of the late British designer Alexander McQueen), and debate continued for weeks. Obama's fashion flair is the subject of endless fascination, but the First Lady has leveraged her position for more substantive causes, most notably an ongoing battle against childhood obesity. Her Let's Move! program seeks to bring teachers, parents and health professionals together to encourage healthy eating and exercise among children across the U.S. In March, the First Lady announced she would write a book, to be published in spring 2012, about her White House organic garden, healthy eating and locally grown food.

30.Ray Kurzweil : Age: 63 Occupation: Inventor, futurist

Already a certified genius in high school, Kurzweil sold his first software company in college and went on to beget an almost Edisonian brood of useful inventions that have earned him millions. But it's as a theoretical historian of humanity's future that he's having his broadest influence. Kurzweil is a prophet of the Singularity, a scenario in which computers evolve into powerful artificial intelligences that will, somewhere around the mid–21st century, refashion their human creators into living godlings. The Singularity is too weird an idea to be truly mainstream, but Kurzweil's measured, data-rich arguments have earned it a surprisingly solid following among the technointelligentsia, including Google co-founder Larry Page.

31.Hu Jintao : Age: 68 Occupation: President of China

Over the past year, Hu Jintao saw his country surpass Japan as the world's second largest economy. He steadied the Asian giant through recession while presiding over one of the most rapidly modernizing militaries on the planet. A quiet, opaque operator, he also successfully installed a close ally of his, Xi Jinping, as his likely successor — possibly cementing his political legacy for years to come.

32.Michelle Rhee : Age: 41 Occupation: Founder and CEO, StudentsFirst

Michelle Rhee gained national notoriety as the controversial chancellor of District of Columbia public schools when she launched an overhaul of the troubled system, closing dozens of under-capacity schools and proposing an end to teacher tenure in exchange for higher, achievement-based pay. She was portrayed as an education superhero of sorts in Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for "Superman". But it was her resignation as chancellor and subsequent launch of StudentsFirst, an advocacy organization aimed at overhauling public education, that cemented Rhee's place as a woman on a mission. In announcing the formation of StudentsFirst on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Rhee said, "I am going to start a revolution. I am going to start a movement in this country on behalf of the nation's children."

33.Andy Cohen : Age: 42 Occupation: TV executive, TV host

Yes, as the executive vice president of programming and development at Bravo, he brings us Housewives and Top Chefs. Yes, as host of the insanely popular Watch What Happens: Live, on which he interviews the characters who populate his smash-hit reality series, he's created a new kind of talk show. But the reason he's an influencer is that he knows everyone, goes everywhere and connects everyone.

34.Betty White : Age: 89 Occupation: Comedian, actress

This Golden Girl has been in the public eye since 1939, yet she's never been more popular. After an appearance in a Snickers commercial put her back in the spotlight, Betty White snagged a role on the TV Land series Hot in Cleveland, for which she was honored with a SAG Award this year. With seven Emmys under her belt, White is also the oldest person ever to host Saturday Night Live, showing that her comedic chops only get better with age. And perhaps to prove just that, there's talk that the 89-year-old star may host a hidden-camera show on which elderly rascals pull pranks on unsuspecting youngsters. Let the jokes begin.

35.Marc LaForce: Age: 71 Occupation: Director, Meningitis Vaccine Project

aForce is director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project, a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that last year began distribution in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger of the first low-cost vaccine for meningococcal meningitis A, a disease that reaches epidemic proportions across northern Africa's "meningitis belt" every December. The disease kills about 10% of those who contract it — some 450 million people are at risk — and leaves some 20% of survivors severely disabled. The vaccine, called MenAfriVac, costs just 40 cents a dose. To date, some 19.5 million people have received it.

36.Steve Jobs: Age: 56 Occupation: CEO of Apple

As iPad sales outpace Mac sales, it sometimes seems that Steve Jobs' only competition is himself. Though 2010 was undoubtedly the year of the iPad (with 1 million sold in just its first month of release), Apple, it seems, continues to be an industry leader in elegant design and innovation in desktops, laptops and smart phones. Though Jobs himself is currently on medical leave, focusing on his health after a pancreatic tumor and liver transplant, the company he co-founded has hardly missed a beat. The iPhone 5 will be out soon.

37.J. Craig Venter and Daniel Gibson: Ages: Venter, 64; Gibson, 34 Occupations: Molecular biologists and genetic engineers

Venter and Gibson are co-leaders of the team that created the first synthetic cell at the J. Craig Venter Institute's lab in Rockville, Md. Building on earlier work, they created a synthetic copy of a bacterial chromosome and inserted it into a different species of bacterium, where it not only replaced the organism's DNA but also went to work. The process is still laborious and prohibitively expensive, but it's a solid step toward truly artificial life.

38.Aung San Suu Kyi:Age: 65 Occupation: Burmese dissident, Nobel laureate

Aung San Suu Kyi has graced the cover of this magazine many times for her courageous — and lonely — struggle against the military junta that kept her under house arrest for years. Her struggle against the country's brutal regime has made Suu Kyi, the daughter of Burma's great nationalist hero, into an icon of democracy and won her great popularity and admiration abroad. Yet at home, though now released from her house arrest, she faces a defining moment: Can the Burmese opposition, embattled and divided, really bring change to a country ruthlessly run by the generals?

39.The Chilean Miners: Ages: 19 to 63 Occupation: Miners

The world was captivated by the plight of the 33 men who were trapped in a mine nearly half a mile underground for 69 days and then successfully rescued in a globally televised scene that energized all of Chile. Feared to have perished until a probe located them 17 days after the accident, "Los 33" managed to survive with minimal friction in unimaginable conditions: dark, cramped quarters; searing heat; oppressive humidity; limited food. Some have actually returned to mining. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera vowed to use the incident to bolster mine safety.

40 .Stephen Hawking:Age: 69 Occupation: Physicist, best-selling author

In his 2010 book The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking made provocative statements about the necessity of a God to achieve creation, starting a firestorm of controversy, which he clarified many times, including in a November interview with TIME. Hawking remarked, "God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God." At a time when avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens' worsening cancer put him at odds with religious people claiming to pray for and wanting to save him, Hawking's reasoned scientific explanation of life gave the nonbelievers a bit more of an edge.

41.Hillary Clinton:Age: 63 Occupation: Secretary of State

Crisis management has become something of a routine for Hillary Clinton. By definition, U.S. Secretaries of State confront international dustups of every variety. But an avalanche of change throughout the Arab world has put Obama's chief diplomat in the uncomfortable position of trying to formulate a coherent policy across a single region made up of multiple nations that affect U.S. interests in very different ways. Yet if reports are to be believed, Clinton has insisted on at least one rule that applies to them all: the U.S. must take unequivocal stands against oppressive dictators. A veteran of the international scene, she had the foresight to warn Arab leaders in January that they risked "sinking into the sand" if they didn't move on democratic reforms. But she's also managed the unprecedented challenge of the WikiLeaks cables. In the tranche of documents released online, she was quoted as saying certain heads of state need psychiatric help, among other embarrassing nuggets. But Clinton has defied skeptics who said she could no longer lead American foreign policy after the leaks.

42.Warren Buffett:Age: 80 Occupation: Investor, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

Sure, the oracle of Omaha has long been recognized as one of the greatest financial minds of our time. But as he prepares to eventually hand over the reins of his conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, at some unspecified future date, Buffett's mind is turning to his $50 billion fortune, and in typical fashion he's decided that the only practical, ethical thing to do is to give it away. In the past year, however, the humble Midwesterner has decided to do something more radical: encourage others to follow his lead. Together with Bill Gates, Buffett has established the Giving Pledge, a campaign to get the world's wealthiest people to agree to give away the vast majority of their fortunes to philanthropic causes. So far some 60 billionaires and almost billionaires have signed up; promised donations from the first 40 alone add up to $125 billion.

43.Cory Booker:Age: 41 Occupation: Mayor of Newark, N.J.

Mayor Cory Booker isn't afraid to do some heavy lifting. When a snowstorm blanketed Newark, N.J., during the 2010 holiday season, he took matters into his own hands, shoveling streets with his staff and turning his popular Twitter feed into a help hotline. His efforts made the already popular mayor a social-media superhero. He has more than 1 million followers on Twitter, though Newark has just 280,000 residents. The attention was nothing new for Booker. Since his election in 2006 (when he won 72% of the vote), he has worked to create summer jobs for teens and help newly released felons find work. His efforts to revamp the city's police department — often cited as his biggest achievement — have lowered crime in Newark by more than 20%. Booker's next target? Newark's long-troubled school system. And for that seemingly intractable problem, he is getting some big-time help. After meeting Booker at a conference last July, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he thought, "This is the guy I want to invest in. This is a real person who can create this change." A few months later, Zuckerberg handed over $100 million to help the city's schools — with the caveat that Booker head the initiative.

44.Barack Obama:Age: 49 Occupation: President of the United States

It's during times of crisis, not calm, when a President's influence peaks. In 2011, a tepid economic recovery threatens the vitality of the nation as well as President Obama's prospects for re-election. A seemingly intractable budget fight in Congress could derail his legislative agenda. The Arab Spring has dramatically realigned the Middle East, and with it, U.S. foreign policy. And the fog of war — now a decade old in Afghanistan and just beginning to gather over Libya — clouds Obama's hopes for a peacetime presidency. There are few things more important this year than Barack Obama's leadership, or the limitations thereof.

45.Elizabeth Warren:Age: 61 Occupation: Consumer advocate and Obama Administration adviser

Elizabeth Warren is only the acting head of the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but you wouldn't know it from her busy agenda. In her temporary job, she has played a significant role in pursuing mortgage servicers for processing abuses, has forced banks to divulge information on credit-card fees and has started to write new rules on home loans. And this is all before the CFPB, which is supposed to regulate financial products much as the Food and Drug Administration oversees medicines, officially opens for business in late July. If Warren gets the permanent job — consumer advocates and newspaper columnists around the U.S. have lobbied for her, but some Republicans and many financial executives oppose her because they think she would be too tough on the banks — she would be the most powerful new banking regulator in decades.

46.Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert:Ages: Stewart, 48; Colbert, 46 Occupations: Late-night TV hosts, satirists

The perennially quote-worthy cable satirists reached a new pinnacle of public influence with the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity on the National Mall. The duo's plea for a new civility in our discourse got lots of laughs, but it became much more serious in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting, as renewed attention was paid to the extreme rhetoric being used in the political arena. Last September Colbert testified in front of Congress, appearing (albeit in character most of the time) before a House subcommittee on immigration. Stewart's Daily Show overtook Jay Leno and David Letterman in ratings among the 18-49 demographic for the first time ever during the fourth quarter of 2010.

47.Ryan Schreiber:Age: 35 Occupation: Founder of Pitchfork Media

In 1995, Ryan Schreiber was a 19-year-old Minneapolis record-store clerk who wanted to publish a rock-music fanzine but lacked access to a photocopier. Instead, he started a website, called it Pitchfork and began posting his thoughts on his favorite indie bands — groups whose songs never got played on the radio or MTV. Fifteen years later, Pitchfork is the Pravda of indie rock, steering opinion (and sales) with its unsparing and infamously dense record reviews. (Among Schreiber's discoveries: a little-known Canadian band named Arcade Fire, who this year took home the Grammy for Album of the Year.) As industry revenues crumble and genres fracture into ever smaller niches, Schreiber and Pitchfork may be the closest thing the music world has to an authoritative voice.

48.Christian Bale:Age: 37 Occupation: Actor

Christian Bale can act. Really act. It's what got him recognized at age 13 when he was cast in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun and what keeps him in the public eye today. Last year Bale showcased his chops transforming himself into Dicky Eklund, the boxer turned drug addict in the biopic-drama The Fighter. The transformation was so complete that when a scene came on during the credits showing the real Dicky Eklund, it was hard to distinguish between the actor and the man himself. The powerful performance netted Bale both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

49.Sarah Palin:Age: 47 Occupation: Media celebrity, potential presidential candidate

There have been times in the past 2½ years when Sarah Palin's political stock was higher, but she's still the Republican Party's most dynamic and divisive power player. With two best-selling books and a full slate of winning candidates she endorsed in last year's midterm elections, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate holds the answer to perhaps the biggest political question of 2011: Will Sarah Palin run for President? Her entrance into a relatively sparse field could upend the contest for the Republican nomination. Candidate or not, Palin's mastery of social media and identity politics ensure that whatever she's doing, her party and the media will take note.

50.Johnny Depp: Age: 47 Occupation: Actor

The always entertaining Depp has continued to prove adept at playing offbeat characters for the mainstream audience — last year he stole the show in yet another Tim Burton picture as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, and he'll be continuing his role as Jack Sparrow in the hugely lucrative Pirates of the Caribbean franchise in this year's fourth installment. And as further proof of his bona fide stardom, even though his film The Tourist (with Angelina Jolie) opened to scathing reviews, it still went on to earn $271 million worldwide, not to mention a Golden Globe nomination for Depp.