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Top 10 thinkers in South Asia

Updated on: 06 January,2023 12:59 PM IST  |  Mumbai
BrandMedia | brandmedia@mid-day.com

India has a long and illustrious history of generating thinkers, instructors, and philosophers who have helped to build new schools of thought that have spread far beyond Indian borders.

Top 10 thinkers in South Asia

These people have ideas beyond people's imagination and yet they seem to be so humble. With a bag full of ideas and innovations, people with great ideologies think out of the box and are able to spread their ideas through their great skills. Throughout our lives, we meet many people who have great thinking but only a few of them succeed as they use their distinctive analytical insights to examine not only the current state of society but also to contribute to the development of future ideas and ideologies. Below are the Top 10 thinkers in South Asia, who's patterns for thinking and connecting ideas made a great impact on society. Learning about such people has always been interesting but what makes them unique is one can find out below.


1. Sanjeev Sanyal


Sanjeev Sanyal, a visionary who quit his high paying financial services career to be in the service of the nation. Sanyal began working in financial economics in the 1990s. In 2015, when he resigned, he was a managing director and global strategist. In 2017, he was appointed as the Principal Economic Adviser to the Indian Ministry of Finance and in that job helped prepare six editions of the Economic Survey of India. In February 2022, he was appointed member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.


He is a thought leader for championing the cause of rewriting the hstography of India by "revisiting" primary sources. As the Co-Chair of the G-20 Framework Working Group, he has been one of the main architects of the G20's Global Action Plan used to coordinate the global response to the Covid19 Pandemic.  In 2007, he was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship for his work on urban dynamics. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore, a Senior Fellow of the World Wide Fund for Nature, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London, and an Honorary Professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. In 2015-16, he served in the Future City Sub-Committee of the Singapore government tasked with building a long-term vision for the city-state.

2. Kinga Tshering

For crafting the constitutional equation of GNH. In 2017, he completed his Ford Foundation Mason Fellowship in the Mid Career Masters in Public Administration program at the Harvard Kennedy School. He spent 2018 as a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Kinga Tshering (born 20 December 1966) is a Bhutanese businessman and politician. He was a Fulbright Fellow while pursuing his Bsc. in Engineering at the University of Kansas and a Dispute Resolution Fellow at the Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution while pursuing his MBA at Pepperdine University. He served in the public sector for 23 years in Bhutan, most recently as the Member of Parliament in the National Assembly. Kinga has just started his own political party to develop Bhutan and meet his vision of global Bhutan with and takee GNH equation across the world.

3. Rachna Sharma

The dynamic Rachna is founder of Phuro Innovations. Rachna started working in India's hospitality & Tourism Industry In 2002. In 2014 / 2015 Rachna quit the industry when she was the hotel development director. Rachna went for leadership development at Harvard Business school. Rachna also pursued several professional and other certifications in world politics, International relations, international development & European union. Rachna is working to create the "South Asia Union" through policy advocacy and economic interdependence.

4. Sri M

Sri M (born Mumtaz Ali Khan) is a yogi and a disciple of Sri Maheshwarnath Babaji, who was a disciple of Mahavatar Babaji . Sri M, also known as Sri Madhukarnath ji, is an initiate of the Nath sub-tradition of Hinduism. Sri M received the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award, in 2020. In 2015, Sri M undertook a "Walk of Hope": a 7,500-kilometre (4,700 mi) padayatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. The walk began on 12 January, the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda (who had undertaken a similar journey over a century earlier). With a group of fellow travelers, Sri M walked through 11 Indian states and considered the Walk of Hope an exercise to restore the country's spirituality. The padayatra ended in Srinagar, Kashmir, on 29 April 2016.

Sri M published The Journey Continues, the second part of his autobiography, in 2017.[17] It exceeds the earlier book in apparently-miraculous incidents; in the introduction, he wrote that his readers might think that he "had finally gone bonkers". Sri M detailed a number of his previous lives over a period of 2,000 years, during which he (or she; in several lives, he was a woman) was associated with Indian saints.

5. Samir Saran

Samir Saran is the President of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India's premier think tank, headquartered in New Delhi. His research focuses on issues of global governance, climate change and energy policy, technology and media, and India's foreign policy. Samir completed his doctoral studies at the Global Sustainability Institute, UK. He holds a Masters degree in Media Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and a Bachelors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, India.

6. Tenzin Lhaden

Tenzin Lhaden is the World Bank's Economist and Operations Officer for Bhutan. She assists the Resident Representative to lead all the economic and analytical work and to oversee the overall World Bank operations in Bhutan. Before joining the World Bank, she worked as an Investment Analyst with the International Finance Corporation. Tenzin holds a double Master in Business Administration (MBA) in Finance and Banking and Global Strategic Management.

7. Aniruddha Dasgupta

Aniruddha Dasgupta is President and CEO of WRI, where he works to advance the institute's global vision to improve the lives of all people and ensure that nature can thrive. Dasgupta is a widely-recognized leader in the areas of sustainable cities, urban design and poverty alleviation. He developed his expertise in positions ranging from nonprofits in India to the World Bank, where he developed the Bank's first Knowledge strategy.  He took the helm at WRI after seven years as Global Director of WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, which is dedicated to shaping a future where cities work better for all people.

8. Madhav Khosla

Madhav Khosla is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. He works across a range of themes in public law and political theory. Much of his writing and research has been in comparative constitutional law, with a focus on South Asia and India. His books include India's Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy, The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, and Unstable Constitutionalism: Law and Politics in South Asia.

9. Jayaprakash Narayan

Dr Jayaprakash Narayan is an Indian Politician and activist. He is a physician by training and served as a member of the Indian Administrative Service for 16 years. He had a tremendously successful tenure and held many important positions in the government of South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. During the course of his service, he acquired deep insights into the Indian governance process and the problems afflicting the nation. He is founder member of Foundation, one of India's leading think tanks and research resource centres for formulating and promoting fundamental reforms in political, electoral,governance & state policy

10. Harsha Aturupane

Harsha Aturupane is a Lead Economist and Program Leader for Human Development for Sri Lanka and the Maldives at the World Bank . He has a Ph.D and M.Phil in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Postgraduate Diploma in Economic Development from the University of Colombo. He has worked and written extensively on human development, education economics, general education, higher education, labor economics, health economics, and the economics of poverty and income distribution. He has led teams in the preparation and supervision of World Bank projects and programs, covering higher education, general education, health, social protection, economic reform, private sector development, and strengthening fiduciary processes.

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