Ebola caregivers were chosen as the TIME's Person of the Year 2014 for their selfless fight against the deadly disease.
While announcing the decision, TIME's editor Nancy Gibbs stated that "They risked and persisted, sacrificed and saved" and hence were the right choice for this year's Person of the Year.
The TIME noted that when the Ebola epidemic broke out, it was not the international agencies who were fighting the war, but 'the people in the field.'
Stating out reasons for choosing the Ebola caregivers as Person of the Year, Gibbs noted that when Ebola first broke out "the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan's Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams."
"Ferguson Protesters, The Activists" became the first runner-up. The TIME's report noted that the activists deserved a place in Person of the Year 2014 for the fact "their refusal to let a life be forgotten turned a local shooting into a national movement."
The movement even forced "a black President who so often seems reluctant to talk about race" to invite young Ferguson protestes into the Oval Office and announce measures to increase police accountability.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been listed third on Person of the Year 2014. The TIME's report stated that "Vladimir Putin, The Imperialist" with the conquest of Crimea, a derelict peninsula about the size of Massachusetts, has at last restored a scrap of Russia's honour.
The report noted that Putin who is on a mission to restore his country's lost empire has put Russia back into significance,without bowing to the US supremacy.
Fourth runner-up on the list this year is the acting president of the Iraqi Kurdish Region since 2005, who has deftly threaded the region's push for independence with the ongoing fight against ISIS. TIME's report noted - "Massoud Barzani, The Opportunist" was chosen for role in giving validity of the claim for a separate country for the Kurdish people.
The fifth runner-up on the Person of the Year 2014 is "Jack Ma, The Capitalist." The report noted that "The Alibaba founder combined an entrepreneur's ambition with political savvy in China to pull off the biggest Wall Street debut in history."
Interestingly Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won readers' poll for TIME magazine's Person of the Year, but the editors' did not even list him in the final eight.
Modi won the readers' poll with 16% majority after gaining five million votes. Ferguson protesters in the US, who took to the streets over the shooting of an unarmed teenager by police, had finished second with 9% votes.
