Prev
Next
Leader of the Indian independence movement; proponent of nonviolent civil disobedience.
Indian politician, economist, and reformer who campaigned on behalf of Dalits (Untouchables); principal author of the Indian constitution.
Prominent figure in Indian independence movement; first Prime Minister of India.
Long-time leader of the All-India Muslim League; founder of Pakistan.
Bangladeshi economist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate; pioneered concepts of microcredit and microfinance.
Central Asian conqueror who founded the Mughal Empire.
Mughal Emperor from 1658 to 1707; presided over the empire's greatest territorial extent, as well as a move away from religious tolerance.
Ascetic philosopher from the 5th and 6th centuries BCE; founder of Buddhism.
3rd century BCE Mauryan Emperor who converted to Buddhism after his bloody conquest of the state of Kalinga.
Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996; first democratically-elected female head of a Muslim-majority country.
Indian Prime Minister who presided over a controversial state of emergency from 1975 to 1977; assassinated in 1984.
Founder of the Maurya Empire; first person to unify most of the Indian Subcontinent into one state.
Leader of the Bangladeshi independence struggle.
Nepali Sherpa mountaineer who, along with Edmund Hillary, was the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Hindu nationalist politician; Indian Prime Minister since 2014.
Nobel Prize-winning Indian Bengali economist; helped develop Human Development Index.
Pakistani general who took control of the country in a 1999 coup d'état.
Pakistani advocate for female education; youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate.
Influential Hindu monk who helped popularize Indian philosophy and religion in the West.
Three-time Prime Minister of Ceylon and Sri Lanka; modern world's first female head of government.
15th and 16th century Punjabi philosopher; founder of Sikhism.
Bengali polymath who became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician; vocal opponent of drone strikes.
Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2001, and 2009 to the present; daughter of the country's founding father.
King of Nepal from 2001 until the monarchy was abolished and the country was declared a republic in 2008.
King of Bhutan since 2006; presided over significant democratic reforms.
Ottoman-born, naturalized Indian, Roman Catholic nun and missionary; 1979 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Economist who was a key figure in the liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s; became India's first Sikh Prime Minister in 2004.
4th and 5th century poet; widely regarded as among the greatest Sanskrit writers.
7th century mathematician; pioneer of the concept of zero.
Comments