Abhishek Patni, New Delhi: She has really arrived! International recognition finally comes her way. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has been listed as one of the top eight woman achievers by the Newsweek magazine.

She tells her life story along with WHO Director General, Margaret Chan, actress Kyra Sedgwick and five others.

Mayawati narrates: "I was born into a Dalit family in Delhi and grew up with eight siblings in a modest home in a crowded neighbourhood. My father worked as a low paid clerk and my mother, an uneducated woman, toiled hard to run the family.''

And she concludes with her dream: "Our aim now is replicate the winning formula in other states and prepare for the bigger struggle to capture power in New Delhi.''

Her conclusion is simply an echo of the familiar noises her supporters have been making - that of making their revered leader the prime minister of India.

And in that first person account published in Newsweek, Mayawati talks about dreaming big and be determined to achieve what you have set out to achieve.

Like her party's symbol, the elephant, she has always thought big - big rallies, big statues of Dalit icons. In the last elections, she even ignored the media.

Mayawati's journey from a modest home in Delhi which she shared with seven other siblings to the power centre in Lucknow has been a dramatic one.

She's written in Newsweek how she had to struggle very hard for every inch of political space she occupies now.

She stuck to her mentor Kanshi Ram's conviction that there are no permanent friends and foes in politics and switched sides according to her own political convenience. Even her opponents know they are dealing with a very unpredictable politician.

Take a look at more women achievers.

Says UP Congress President, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, "Mayawati has to and must concentrate on the mandate that the people have given her and the mandate is to weed away corruption and to implement the Central programs."

In the caste-fractured state of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati's experiment of social engineering has proved a great success for the party, and she has managed to severely dent the upper caste vote back of national parties, such as the BJP.

However, it remains to be seen if her Brahmin-Dalit formula works in other states also. That will be the real test for this powerful politician.