Ebola fighters named TIME's Person of the Year 2014

Ebola fighters collectively were named as the TIME’s Person of the Year 2014 on 10 December 2014 by the TIME’s magazine.  The announcement was made by Nancy Gibbs, the Managing Editor of TIME.

They were selected from an initial list of 50 world leaders, business heads and record-breaking artists for their tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defences, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving the thousands of lives from Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

In their honour, the magazine has come out with five cover pages featuring five of them. 

These are:

·              Dr Kent Brantly: the U.S. doctor who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Liberia

·              Dr Jerry Brown: A Liberian surgeon who turned his hospital's chapel into the country's first Ebola treatment center

·              Foday Gallah: An ambulance driver who survived the infection

·              Salome Karwah: Medecins Sans Frontieres nurse

EVD since its outbreak in early 2014 turned into an epidemic killing more than 7000 people across Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone before traveling to Europe and the U.S.

The Top Four Runners Up of the TIME’s Person of the Year 2014

In the TIME’s Person of the Year 2014, Ferguson Protesters came at the second place. They started their protest in August 2014 and built a movement that revived national conversation about race and justice. The protesters took to the streets following the shooting down of 18-year-old unarmed black man Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson.

At third place came the Russian President Vladimir Putin who invaded Crimea in February 2014 and in doing so, restored Russia's honour and saw his approval ratings soar.

The fourth place was bagged by Masoud Barzani, the acting president of the Iraqi Kurdish Region.

At fifth place came Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma, who founded Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant that debuted with 25 billion US dollars IPO in September 2014 making it one of the world's most valuable tech companies.

Other than this, in the readers’ poll of TIMES magazine that was conducted online Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the poll with a whopping 16 percent margin.

TIME's Person of the Year since 2000

This is an annual honour bestowed by Time magazine since 1927. It goes to the person who most influenced the news during the year for better or worse.

·              2000: George W. Bush

·              2001: Rudolph Giuliani, who was New York City's mayor on 9/11

·              2002: The Enron Whistleblowers

·              2003: The American soldier

·              2004: George W. Bush

·              2005: The Good Samaritans - Bono and Bill Gates

·              2006: You - represented by the Internet

·              2007: Vladimir Putin

·              2008: Barack Obama

·              2009: Ben Bernanke

·              2010: Mark Zuckerberg

·              2011: The Protester

·              2012: Barack Obama

·              2013: Pope Francis

*     2014: Ebola Fighters