1. Adar Poonawalla

Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII), became a household name in 2021. The 40-year-old ‘vaccine prince’ committed himself to manufacturing millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses. In 2020, Poonawalla signed a deal with Oxford -AstraZeneca to manufacture Covishield. The company recently surpassed the milestone figure of producing a billion doses of the vaccine. This month, SII’s two new indigenously developed vaccines and an antiviral drug were approved by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation for restricted emergency use.

2. Dr. Krishna Ella

Dr. Krishna Ella, Managing Director of Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, also led the fight against Covid-19 by stepping up to manufacture India’s first homegrown vaccine, Covaxin. In November, the World Health Organisation (WHO) approved emergency use of Covaxin. On December 25, the Drug Controller General of India approved Covaxin for emergency use for children above 12 years. Covaxin demonstrated 77.8 per cent vaccine efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19 disease. Dr. Ella’s Bharat Biotech is targeting to manufacture one billion doses of its intra-nasal vaccine in 2022.

3. Captain Zoya Agarwal

Captain Zoya Agarwal led an all-women crew of Air India to create history after they undertook the longest flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru over North Pole in January. With four women pilots, the longest direct route flight landed at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, covering a distance of about 16,000 km. The other three captains to operate the flight were Papagari Thanmai, Akansha Sonaware and Shivani Manhas.

4. Neeraj Chopra

Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian to win an Olympic gold in track and field discipline. A farmer’s son from Khandra village, in Haryana, he made a second-round throw of 87.58m in the finals at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 and ended India’s 100-year wait. This was India’s second individual gold at the sports event, after shooter Abhinav Bindra’s win in 2008. The Olympic gold medalist received the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award from President Ram Nath Kovind in November.

5. Parag Agarwal

In 2021, India celebrated the appointment of Parag Agrawal, 37, as the youngest CEO of micro-blogging site Twitter, replacing Twitter’s cofounder Jack Dorsey. The IIT-Bombay alumnus began his career at the company as an engineer in 2011, after stints at AT&T, Microsoft and Yahoo. Agrawal is now one among the other Indian-Americans such as Google’s Sunder Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen to head major US tech companies.

6. Falguni Nayar

Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar became India’s wealthiest self-made women billionaire with her company’s net worth touching $13 billion. Nayar, a former investment banker, launched the beauty-and fashion e-commerce platform in 2012 just months before she turned 50. In November 2021, after the Nykaa IPO was oversubscribed 82 times on the final bidding day, its share price almost doubled upon listing. Nayar also made it to the Forbes list of 100 powerful women of the year. The company sells over 1,350 beauty and personal care brands both online and through its stores across the country.

7. Sourabh Kirpal

Sourabh Kirpal made history in 2021, after his name was suggested by the Supreme Court Collegium for the appointment as a judge at the Delhi High Court. Kirpal is former Chief Justice of India Bhupinder Nath Kirpal’s son. When appointed, Kirpal will be India’s first openly gay judge. 

8. Vir Das

Stand-up comedian-actor Vir Das was at the centre of the controversy in 2021 after his monologue at Kennedy Centre in Washington DC, called ‘I Come From Two Indias’, received flak on social media. He spoke on various topics, including the farmer protests, the battle against Covid-19, the duality in response to women, particularly rape, and the crackdown on comedians. A BJP leader from New Delhi also filed a complaint against Das alleging that he used "derogatory" statements against India to malign the country's image abroad. Responding to the flak, the comedian said it was a satire act and as a comedian, he will continue doing his job.

9. Kunal Kamra

The stand-up comedian landed in a controversy after his tweet against the APEX court in January. He said, “Should powerful people and institutions continue to show an inability to tolerate rebuke or criticism, we would be reduced to a country of incarcerated artists and flourishing lapdogs.” Following this, he was issued a notice of contempt for allegedly denigrating the Supreme Court. In December, Kamra’s shows were cancelled in Bengaluru and other parts of the country. Reacting to this, Kamra had said, “I suppose I am seen as a variant of virus now.” He was later invited to perform in Telangana and Madhya Pradesh by TRS leader K.T. Rama Rao and Congress leader Digvijay Singh.

10. Harnaaz Sandhu

After Sushmita Sen and Lara Dutta, Chandigarh’s 21-year-old Harnaaz Sandhu made history after she was crowned Miss Universe 2021 after 21 years. The 70th edition of the event was held in Eilat, Israel, where Sandhu bagged the coveted pageant. The Chandigarh-based model, who is pursuing her master's degree in public administration, was crowned by her predecessor Andrea Meza of Mexico