The Forbes list: The World's 100 Most Powerful Women

I was going through the list and noted a few interesting things:

1. Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and Chief Executive of PepsiCo (No.5) and Vidya Chhabria, Chairperson, Jumbo Group (No.97) are listed as being from the U.S and U.A.E respectively. Chhabria is credited as being 'originally from India' in an article linked to the list.

2. Sonia Gandhi, the only representative from India, is listed as 'President'. Not President of the Congress Party, but President full stop.

3. Diane Sawyer, co-anchor of 'Good Morning America', whom I saw a couple of days ago, comes in at No.62.

4. Compared to India's one candidate, China has five, and the U.S fifty.

Intrigued, I found out the basis for the ranking system:

Our ranking system starts with a list of women who have crossed certain thresholds. Most of them run companies, governments or nonprofits, or are very close to the top. A handful have established power bases in other ways (an entertainment entrepreneur, a judge and an author have been on the list). The power ranking score is based on a composite of visibility (measured by press citations) and economic impact.

The latter, in turn, reflects three things: résumé (career achievements and titles, so a prime minister counts as more powerful than a senator); the size of the economic sphere over which a leader holds sway; and a multiplier that aims to make different financial yardsticks comparable. For example, a chief executive is assigned the company's sales in the economic impact calculation, while a foundation executive is assigned the foundation's assets. The assets get a higher multiplier than sales.

Emphasis in bold mine. So does this mean that countries where the press is not as active as in others will render the achievements of women in that country less worthy? As for the second sentence I emphasized in bold, that explains why there are fifty women from the U.S in the list, I suppose.