Sunny Leone, 4 Other Indians In BBC 100 Most Influential Women List

Bollywood actor Sunny Leone is listed in this year’s BBC 100 most influential women of the year. The coveted list honours women who are inspirational in their work or are defying the stereotypes and the social structure to live a life of freedom.

“It's your right as a woman to follow your dreams and it's your responsibility to make them come true”

Sunny Leone’s Bollywood career began after her stint in Indian TV show, BigBoss. She has been a part of many films like Jism 2, Jackpot and Ek Paheli Leela. Before her foray into Indian cinema, Leone was a huge hit in the porn industry of the West, but she put it in the past to join Bollywood.

The list has women from around the world and is topped by songwriter and singer Alicia Keys from America. She has won 15 Grammys and sold over 30 million records across the world. She is one of the greatest R&B performers of all times. US gold medal winning Olympian gymnast Simone Biles is also on the list.

Apart from Leone, four other Indian women have also found place in the list. They are Gouri Chindarkar (Sangli), Mallika Srinivasan (Chennai), Neha Singh (Mumbai) and Saalumarada Thimmakka (Karnataka).

Chindarkar is only 20 years old. She is a computer engineering student and is one of the first children in India to experience a unique learning experience now known as 'School in the Cloud'.

The co-founder of the famous - Why Loiter - campaign emerging out of Mumbai, Neha Singh is also among the BBC women of the year. She is also an actor and writer.

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Then there is the Tractor Queen of the country, Mallika Srinivasan, who has grown her family company into the third largest tractor manufacturer in the world. She is currently the CEO of Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd.

And the last Indian in the list is the 105-year-old environmentalist, Saalumarada Thimmakka. She has planted more than 8,000 trees in 80 years, a project which first started in response to social ridicule at not being able to have children.

Another global personality who has been featured in the list is US gold medal winning Olympian gymnast Simone Biles.

Picture credit- NDTV