Asia’s top 20 progressives?

World Business names Singapore’s Mr Brown and Malaysia’s Raja Petra Kamarudin, as well as former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad and present Indonesian President SBY as among Asia’s top 20 most progressive. Let’s see what you make of the list yourself.

Top 20 Asian Progressives, World Business magazine, May 2007
1 – Hu Jintao, the eighth General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and China’s paramount leader and president
2 – Raja Petra Kamarudin, founder of the Malaysia Today website
3 – Lou Jiwei, head of China’s investment agency
4 – Narayana Murthy, founder of Indian IT services firm Infosys
5 – Nguyen Tan Dung, prime minister of Vietnam
6 – Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in India, which provides micro-credit loans to the poor
7 – Mahathir Mohamad, former prime minister of Malaysia
8 – Li Ka Shing, Hong-Kong founder of conglomerate Cheung Kong Holdings which embraces businesses including ports, telecommunications and electricity generation, operates in 54 countries and employs 220,000 people
9 – Jaime Augusto Zobel De Ayala, head of the Ayala Group, one of the Philippines’ biggest business groups
10 – Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary, founder of a string of businesses in Malaysia embracing property, hotels, power stations, rubber plantations, banking, retailing and construction and a charity foundation which has poured millions into building mosques, schools and hospitals
11 – Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of Indonesia
12 – Ratan Tata, head of the Tata Group, a family business based in India which is becoming global with businesses ranging from steel to cars to IT services
13 – Warren Lichtenstein, activist investor and founder of Steel Partners, a New York-based hedge fund
14 – Mahesh, Ajay and Sharad Amalean, founders of Sri-Lankan-based apparel maker, MAS Holdings
15 – Jaruvan Maintaka, auditor general, Thailand
16 – Lee Kin Mun (alias Mr Brown), founder of Singapore’s social and political commentary website, http://www.mrbrown.com which averages 20,000 downloads per day
17 – Zeti Akhtar Aziz, governor of Malaysia’s central bank
18 – Tarisa Watanagase, the first female governor of the Bank of Thailand
19 – David Webb, Hong-Kong based founder of one of the best global websites devoted to corporate governance, http://www.webb-site.com
20 – Pushpa Kamal Dahal (alias Prachanda), leader of the Maoist Communist party of Nepal