Indira Nooyi, 50, assumed her role as President and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, on October 1, 2006. In May 2001, she was elected to PepsiCo's Board and became President and Chief Financial Officer in May 2001, after serving as Senior Vice President and CFO since February 2000. Prior to that, she was Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning, and Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Development, between 1994 and 2000.
Before joining PepsiCo, Ms. Nooyi had spent four years as Senior Vice President of Strategy, Planning and Strategic Marketing for Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). She had also worked with Motorola, as Vice President and Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning.
Sunil B. Mittal is known as Indian Telecom czar. He is chairman and managing director of the Bharti Group, that runs India's largest GSM-based mobile phone service. Vodafone and SingTel both own stakes in the recently renamed flagship Bharti Airtel. A first-generation entrepreneur, Mittal started his first business in 1976 with a capital investment of Rs 20,000. He initially founded a number of trading concerns, and established the first company to manufacture push-button telephones in India.
Mittal was one of the first entrepreneurs to identify the mobile telecom business as a major growth area and launched services in the city of Delhi and the National Capital Region in 1995. Under his inspiring leadership, the company’s network expanded to cover the country. Sunil has also received awards such as Telecom Person of the Year, 2006; Best Asian Telecom CEO, 2005 etc.
The list of 79 Padma Shri awardees included noted educationist Mushir-ul Hassan, writer Vikram Seth, golfer Jeev Milkha Singh, human rights activist Teesta Setalvad, who had taken up the cases of Gujarat riots victims and chess player K Humpy.
However, no one has been named for the country's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, for the third straight year.
