Fun, Frolic and the India Story

First up, here’s our honest advice: Forget the scams, lies and audiotapes for a while. This special edition that you hold in your hands is designed to bring in some of the good cheer that one normally expects as the year draws to a close. And there’s been plenty to celebrate through the course of the year, especially if you consider the achievements of all the incredible folks that grace our Forbes India Person of the Year shortlist. (Despite all the daily outpouring of bad news, it’s pretty obvious that there’s a real India that’s on the move, if you know where to look.)

We’ve had a lot of fun bringing you these stories. There’s a vibrant debating society inside Forbes India. Therefore, building consensus on our shortlist is never easy. And our Project Editors Shishir Prasad and Peter Griffin achieved the impossible and yet managed to hold the entire edition together with some deft planning. Our writers and photographers have travelled widely, even as far as distant Sikkim, to capture the inspiring stories of businessmen, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, politicians, sportspersons and entertainers, who’ve left their mark on India’s present and future. We’ve always maintained that every person on our shortlist is a winner. But if you’d force us to choose one, we’d have to pick Nitish Kumar as our Forbes India Person of the Year. If we had more leaders like him in our political arena, the transformation process wouldn’t be quite as slow as it is today.

Our traditional front-of-the-book and back-of-the-book sections have been replaced with a big bunch of lists, some serious, a few mildly serious and some that are light and fun. Think of them as the quickest way to stay ahead of the curve next year.

Several folks have contributed in making this edition sparkle. Our design team, led by Arindam Duttgupta and Benu Joshi Routh, has added the extra bit of zing to each and every layout. And our photo team led by Dinesh Krishnan, our vastly experienced Director-Photography along with his deputy Vikas Khot, has painstakingly planned and executed every little detail for our photo shoots. Our hardworking colleagues on the desk, led by S. Srinivasan and Sveta Basraon, have taken great pains to edit each story. You’ll discover their creativity in the pages that follow.

Hope you enjoy this edition just as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing it to you! And here’s wishing all our readers a happy 2011!