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India's 10 most influential 'head turners'

Compiling the definitive list of the who's who of a country as diverse as India is not easy. But the influence of these personalities extends beyond their immediate responsibilities and posts.

These ‘head turners’, several of them from the civil society, have impacted lives through legal battles they have waged for rights of people, the help they have provided to countrymen during the COVID-19 lockdown, and the general debate and discussion they have generated in the country for a better tomorrow.

Check out the methodology of how the list was arrived at the end of this piece.

1. Prashant Bhushan (born October 15, 1956) is a public interest lawyer in the Supreme Court of India.

2. K K Shailaja (born November 20, 1956), popularly known as Shailaja Teacher, is an Indian politician and current Minister of Health and Social Welfare of Kerala state.

3. Sonu Sood (born July 30, 1973) is an Indian film actor, producer, and humanitarian who acts predominantly in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Punjabi films.

4. Harish Salve (born June 22, 1955) is a senior advocate who practices at the Supreme Court of India.

5. Subramanian Swamy (born September 15, 1939) is an Indian politician, economist and statistician who serves as a nominated Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha.

6. Yogendra Yadav (born September 5, 1963) is an Indian activist, psephologist and politician.

7. Swara Bhasker (born April 9, 1988) is an Indian actress who works in the Hindi film industry.

8. Manish Mundra (born April 22, 1973) is an Indian film producer.

9. Dushyant Dave is a senior advocate, practicing in the Supreme Court of India.

10. Lav Agarwal (born February 19, 1973) is an engineer and an IAS officer in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, serving as a joint secretary.

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Note: Personalities in the list have been recognised on the basis of their influence over people, their pressure on the government, and the change they have sought to bring about.

The final list was compiled by Yahoo editors, but by taking into account the aforementioned points and also factors such as the social media influence these personalities wield, their popularity, their impact on the country, their newsworthiness, the mass-following they have, the general power they possess to make things happen, and readers’ opinions/polls.

This list looks at the ‘10 most influential head turners in India’. Other lists rank business leaders, sportspeople, entertainers, media-persons.

Look out for these in the coming days. Like all such rankings, these too are subjective and open to debate.

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