Sonia Gandhi

Sonia Gandhi is an Italian born Indian politician, who is the widow of former Indian Prime-minister, Rajiv Gandhi. She decided to stay away from politics after the assassination of her husband in 1991, despite all of the efforts of her late husbands colleagues to persuade her to do otherwise. Finally in 1997, she caved in and a year later, she had been elected as President of the National Congress Party, she is the longest serving president in the history of the party, and the fifth foreign-born president of the party. This has been subject to much controversy over the course of her career, but despite this, she has been named the third most powerful woman in the world and the ninth most powerful person.