Washington: Credited worldwide for turning around the state of Bihar, Nitish Kumar has been listed by the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine among its top 100 global thinkers, a list that is topped by Aung Saan Sui Kyi and Thein Sein, and also features Salman Rushdie and Malala Yousufzai.
Kumar figures at the 77th spot and finds the place for his achievement of "turning around India's poorest state" through an array of innovative programmes to address crime, corruption and lack of development.
The list of 100 also features India's chief economic advisor Raghuram Rajan at 80 and writer Pankaj Mishra at 86. In an ironic but interesting feature, Myanmar's democracy icon Suu Kyi has been bracketed with her tormentor-turned-ally Thein Sein, the military ruler, as the two leaders together chart out a non-military future for their country.
Citing Myanmar as "one of the most remarkable and unexpected political reversals of our time," the magazine writes about how the country -- long counted among the world's most repressive dictatorships -- has begun to reform under the leadership of "two very unlikely allies".
The 61-year-old Chief Minister of Bihar has been credited for reforming the state of government in what was long considered India's own Haiti or Somalia, "viewed as one of the most dysfunctional corners of a country world famous for government dysfunction".
"Much of that began to change, however, when a low-key bureaucrat from a local center-left party, Nitish Kumar, won the 2005 election and set out to clean up a wasteland where 100 million people are squeezed into a territory smaller than Arkansas," the magazine wrote.
"In his two terms in office, he has done just that, relying on an array of innovative programmes to crack down on crime, shame corrupt public officials, and boost economic development," it said.
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