Dave is Britain's youngest PM in 200 years!

370)this.width=370">Grey hair and seniority are no longer criterion to rule countries; the latest in the growing list of young -- under 50 -- leaders is British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Following Barack Obama's election as America's president in November 2008 and Dmitry Medvedev's election as Russian president earlier that same year, 43-year-old Cameron's appointment may indicate that the masses believe that younger leaders can do a good job of ruling a country.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, now Britain's deputy prime minister and the toast of the recent election campaign, is a few months younger than Cameron.

Closer home, we have a young leader whose influence grows each week. Unlike Messrs Cameron, Medvedev and Obama, Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was not born in the 1960s. He is a child of the 1970s and will turn 40 next month.

David Cameron was born to wealth and is a pucca member of the British aristocracy. He has since transformed himself into a man of the people and staked his political reputation to bring his Conservative party to more centrist ways and regain power after 13 long years in the wilderness.

Dave (born October 9, 1966) -- as he likes to be known now -- is the youngest British prime minister in more than 200 years, and is more an avatar of Labour leader Tony Blair than Margaret Thatcher, the patron saint of the modern-day Conservative party.

Dave, who is known to ride a cycle to the House of Commons, the British parliament, has had a meteoric rise to the pinnacle of British politics. A decade or so ago, he was handling PR for a prominent British company; then he plunged into politics.

As prominent Conservatives like William Hague -- that 48-year-old was once the wonderboy of British politics and considered a future prime minister till he lost the 2001 general election -- were shunted aside by electoral defeats and aggrieved party cadres, Dave made his way up.

Five years ago, when he was elected leader of the Conservatives, no one gave him a chance. Oh, look at him now!