Narendra Modi
Narendra ModiIANS

The world seems to have taken notice of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his growing global influence, as he was ranked the 15thmost powerful person in the world just months after taking charge at the helm of India's government.

In the newly released Forbes List of 'The World's Most Powerful People', which came out on the same day as the US mid-term poll results, US President Barack Obama had to settle for the second place in the list as well, as he had to concede the top place to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin topped the list for the second year in a row, and this year, it was his role in annexing Crimea, fuelling the conflict in Ukraine and in inking the 'largest construction project' to build a $70 billion gas pipeline to China, that earned him the top spot.

China's Xi Jinping closed the third spot on the list, while Pope Francis, known to be revolutionising the Roman Catholic Church, bagged the fourth 'most powerful' spot.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Bill Gates, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergrey Brin, and UK Prime Minister David Cameron filled the other five spots in the Top 10 on the list.

Forbes' sixth annual ranking of "The World's 72 Most Powerful People" marked Modi's debut, while Congress President Sonia Gandhi fell off the list. Modi had Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani from India as company at the 36th spot, while Indian-born Satya Nadella, who heads Microsoft, and Arcelor-Mittal Chairman Lakshmi Mittal also featured on the list at the 64th and 57th spots respectively.

China's richest man and Alibaba founder Jack Ma also made a debut after his $25 billion initial public offering in September.

In Modi's profile, Forbes described him as 'India's newest rockstar' who doesn't hail from Bollywood.

"India's newest rock star doesn't hail from Bollywood. He is the newly elected prime minister who sailed into office in May with a landslide victory, ushering the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into power after decades of control by the Gandhi dynasty," the profile reads. "A Hindu nationalist allegedly responsible for encouraging and allowing communal violence and sectarianism in the Gujarat riots in 2002 and on a U.S. no-entry list since 2005 to 2014, Modi is credited with massive reconstruction projects in his home state of Gujarat. His administration promises to bring economic rejuvenation to other beleaguered parts of India. The world is as impressed as the citizens of India".

Women Make Up only 12% of Most Powerful People in the World
While there was some good news from the gender perspective as two women featured in the Top 10 of the Most Powerful List for the first time, overall, they constituted only 12% in the list of 72, as only nine women made it to the list.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Federal reserve Chair Janet Yellen were the two women in the top ten, while the other seven were Brazil President Dilma Rousseff, South Korea President Park Geun-Hye, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, WHO Director General Margaret Chan, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, General Motors (GM) Chief Executive Mary Barra and Australian mining heiress Gina Rinehart.