Mamata Banerjee

Mamata Banerjee (pronounced ; born 5 January 1955) is the 11th and current Chief Minister of West Bengal. She is the first woman to hold the office. Banerjee founded the party All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC or TMC) in 1997 and became its chairperson, after separating from the Indian National Congress. She is usually called "Didi" (meaning elder sister). In 2011 Banerjee pulled off a landslide victory for the TMC in West Bengal by defeating the world's longest-serving democratically-elected communist government, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, bringing to an end 34 years of Left Front rule in the state. Banerjee previously served as a Minister of Railways twice and is also the first women Railway Minister of India, Minister of Coal, and Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Department of Youth Affairs and Sports and Women and Child Development in the cabinet of the Indian government. She opposed forceful land acquisition for industrialisation by the then communist government in West Bengal for Special Economic Zones at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers.

In 2012, the Time magazine named her one of the "100 Most influential People in the World".

In September,2012 Bloomberg Markets magazine listed her among the 50 most influential people in the world of finance.