Anerood Jugnauth, the 72-year-old prime minister of Mauritius, is serving his second term at the helm of one of Africa’s rare social and economic success stories. Jugnauth, who has a long and distinguished political career, was first elected to the island nation’s Parliament in 1963 and went on to win seven consecutive elections. He will be giving up the premier’s postion to his deputy, Paul Berenger, later this year, in a power-sharing arrangement within the ruling alliance comprising Jugnauth’s Movement Socialist Militant and Berenger’s Mauritius Militant Movement.

Jugnauth was called to the bar in 1954 after studying law at Lincoln’s Inn, London. He played an active role in the 1960s negotiations for independence with Britain. He was also conferred a knighthood.

Jugnauth joined the All Mauritius Hindu Congress in 1965 and was a minister in the government of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam from 1965 to 1966. In November 1966, he became minister of labor. In the early 1970s, Jugnauth served as leader of the opposition. In 1982, he became prime minister after his radical left-wing alliance won every single seat in the Legislative Assembly.

Jugnauth has been called the architect of Mauritius’ economic miracle. Under him, the sugarcane-dependent island economy expanded to become an international tourist destination offering offshore financial services and free port facilities.

It was on the sugarcane fields of Mauritius, run by British colonizers, that the Indians --- ancestors of Jugnauth and about 70 percent of Mauritians --- came to work as indentured labor. Most of them were from Bihar.

Jugnauth likes reading and soccer and speaks English, French, Creole, Hindi and Bhojpuri. He loves Hindi movies and South Indian food. He says he is excited each time he visits India, but never goes to Bihar. In a recent interview to a news magazine, he said that a trip there would make him sad. He has heard the people in Bihar are still very poor, unlike their cousins in Mauritius.

Ujjal Dosanjh, 56, was sworn in as premier of Canada’s British Columbia province on Feb. 24, 2000, and held the post for a little over a year. It was a tremendous achievement for a first generation migrant --- Dosanjh was born in Dosanjh Kallan in Punjab in 1947 and went to Britain at the age of 17. Four years later he went on to Canada.

Dosanjh worked hard in his early years in Canada, first as a janitor and later in a sawmill and then went to law school. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Simon Frazer University followed by a law degree from the University of British Columbia and enrolled with the bar in 1977. In 1979, he established a law practice in Vancouver.

As a student and as a young lawyer, Dosanjh was involved in organizing Punjabi immigrant farm workers in Canada and fighting for their rights. His community involvements include South Vancouver Neighbourhood House, MOSAIC, the B.C. Multicultural Society and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

He was elected the New Democratic Party (NDP) legislator for the riding of Vancouver-Kensington in 1991 and was re-elected in 1996. He was appointed British Columbia’s attorney general in 1995 and before that was minister for multiculturalism, human rights, and immigration. The moment of glory in his political career was his elevation to the post of premier in February 2000. His party was, however, routed in the February 2001 election and he resigned from the leadership of the NDP.

Dosanjh is married to Raminder and they have three sons: Pavel, Aseem and Umber.

South African sociologist, historian and political activist Fatima Meer, 73, was born in Durban, where her father was the editor and publisher of India Views, a weekly paper.

Meer took active part in the South African liberation struggle and was a founder-member of the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW). She was detained without trial for five months in 1975 and suffered two bomb attacks and survived an assassination attempt.

She worked for the Universities of Transkei, Witwatersrand and Natal, and has served as a board member of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Meer has received many awards for her role in the struggle against apartheid and has recently published a book on the life of Nelson Mandela.

A follower of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, she wrote the script of the film, ‘The Making of the Mahatma.’ At a seminar organized during the Pravasiya Bharatiya Sammelan, Meer said South Africa and India needed to stand together to introduce a new economic philosophy to the world, and revive Gandhian economic principles. “Otherwise we cannot claim Gandhi as our own,” she said.

President of Britain’s third-largest political party, the Liberal Democrats, Navnit Dholakia, 66, was raised to peerage as Baron Dholakia of Waltham Brooks in the county of West Sussex in 1997. Educated in Indian public schools and Tanzania, Dholakia arrived in Britain as a 17-year-old to study at the Brighton Technical College and promptly joined the Young Liberals of which he became president in June 2000, one of the highest political offices held in Britain by a person of Indian origin. He was re-elected unopposed as president in 2002 and is currently serving a second two-year term.

Dholakia fought his first election for the Brighton city council in 1958. Through his distinguished career, Dholakia has consistently opposed institutional racism in Britain, working for the Commission for Racial Equality, Police Complaints Authority, Ethnic Minority Advisory Committee of the Judicial Studies Board and as member of the Runnymede Trust Commission, chaired by fellow Asian peer Lord Bhikhu Parekh.

Dholakia is a member of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on home affairs. He is married to Ann McLuskie and they have two daughters --- Anjali, a lawyer, and Alene, a doctor. A keen photographer and gardener, Dholakia loves traveling and rustling up Indian food for his guests.

Dato’ Seri S. Samy Vellu, 67, is president of the Malaysian Indian Congress and has been its leader for more than 20 years. His party has been a partner in Malaysia’s ruling National Front Coalition since 1979 and Vellu is the only Indian in Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad’s cabinet.

Vellu has been a member of the House of Representatives of the Malaysian Parliament since 1974 and has to his credit several successful public projects, the most notable among them being the Penang bridge linking the mainland with Penang Island and introducing privatization of highways in the country.

Vellu’s parents were rubber tappers brought by British colonial rulers from Tamil Nadu in India to work in the rubber plantations. As a young man, Vellu worked as a bus conductor and then became an office boy in a firm of architects. He qualified as an architect in 1974 and is today a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Malaysian Institute of Architects.

Seen as one of the most successful persons of Indian descent in Malaysia, Vellu is currently works minister in the Malaysian government.