Sonia, Mittal, Nooyi among Time's 100

Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi, steel giant Lakshmi Mittal and Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi figure on Time magazine's coveted list of 100 most influential people, which also includes Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Missing from the list for the first time in four years is US President George W Bush.

In a write-up on Gandhi, who is also on the cover of the magazine's Asia edition, Time says that she had become the face of the country's most famous family and also managed the largest political party in the country, steering it to victory.

"And she has done all this wearing a sari," it adds.

When her party won national elections in 2004, she was offered the prime ministership; she listened to her "inner voice" and turned it down, and anointed economist Manmohan Singh in her stead, Time recalled.

"It was a gesture that was, well, Gandhian. And it solidified her hold on power," the Time write-up said.

The list also features Queen Elizabeth II, Sudanese President Mohamed Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, acting Cuban President Raul Castro, Iranian supreme leader Atyatollah Ali Khamenei, Chinese President Hu Jintao, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Pope Benedict XVI.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barrack Obama, fighting for Democratic nomination for next year's US presidential election, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and outspoken critic of President Bush and House speaker Nancy Pelosi are among the Americans who find their names on the list.

The magazine compares Laskhmi Mittal, CEO of Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel company, with Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie who consolidated the steel industry in the US and is widely respected as a philanthropist, saying Mittal appears to be a Carnegie reincarnate.

On Nooyi, Time says for her, the shocking thing isn't who she is but the world she has inherited. "As Pepsi's strategist, she's a former management consultant who helped position Pepsico for growth in China, West Asia and India," it says.