to the prime minister in 1991 his columns and books have made for interesting insightful reading but it was during his stint as environment minister from may 2009 to july 2011 that jairam ramesh 58 really made waves transforming a largely moribund ministry into a watchdog to reckon with rameshs iconic decisions on the vedanta project and bt brinjal have set environmental concerns firmly at the heart of domestic politics even as he played a pivotal role in climate negotiations globally he has also been the interface between civil society and the congress leadership on critical issues in the two tenures of the upa he multitasks furiously but likes just one table lamp lit in his office when he is working you can see it through the glass door he installs in each office that he is given a rare politician who spends a lot of time researching and writing his own speeches ramesh is often credited with drafting the upas common minimum programme as cabinet minister for rural development he will have to deliver on social sector schemes that will be critical for the congresss electoral prospects but its a safe bet that he will still make time for his beloved carnatic music nandan nilekani chairman uidai tasked with giving an identity to millions of faceless indians nandan nilekani has gone about the job with the same briskness engineers problemsolving approach and networking skills that he displayed while building infosys technologies into indias second largest it services firm officially nilekani is now chairman of uidai unique identification authority of india unofficially he is the upas technology czar but he prefers the more humble epithet of plumber to the government urban planning is nilekanis great love even while running infosys he found time for urban affairs because he does not share the two great indian passions films and cricket this frees up loads of time for him nilekani was the head of the much lauded bangalore agenda task force batf one of the countrys first governmentprivatesocial sector initiatives to improve urban governance during s m krishnas tenure as chief minister of karnataka he recently wrote a big cheque rs 50 crore for the proposed national university on urbanization in bangalore along with his wife rohini an iitbombay engineering graduate he missed the cat admission exam for iims due to a fever and thus didnt go down the usual engineeringmbacorporate executive route instead meeting his mentor n r narayana murthy at his first job patni computers led him down a well chronicled path of entrepreneurial superstardom networker par excellence the joke in infosys was that he knew every seventh person on earth he leapfrogged senior cofounders of infosys to take over the ceos job once murthy stepped down the surprising decision to give up that post for kris gopalakrishnan meant his slate was clean and table tidy when the call came from prime minister manmohan singh to join the government sunita narain directorgeneral centre for science