How to sort multidimensional array by column?

Yes. The sorted built-in accepts a key argument:

sorted(li,key=lambda x: x[1])
Out[31]: [['Jason', 1], ['John', 2], ['Jim', 9]]

note that sorted returns a new list. If you want to sort in-place, use the .sort method of your list (which also, conveniently, accepts a key argument).

or alternatively,

from operator import itemgetter
sorted(li,key=itemgetter(1))
Out[33]: [['Jason', 1], ['John', 2], ['Jim', 9]]

Read more on the python wiki.

sorted(list, key=lambda x: x[1])

Note: this works on time variable too.

You can use list.sort with its optional key parameter and a lambda expression:

>>> lst = [
...     ['John',2],
...     ['Jim',9],
...     ['Jason',1]
... ]
>>> lst.sort(key=lambda x:x[1])
>>> lst
[['Jason', 1], ['John', 2], ['Jim', 9]]
>>>

This will sort the list in-place.

---

Note that for large lists, it will be faster to use operator.itemgetter instead of a lambda:

>>> from operator import itemgetter
>>> lst = [
...     ['John',2],
...     ['Jim',9],
...     ['Jason',1]
... ]
>>> lst.sort(key=itemgetter(1))
>>> lst
[['Jason', 1], ['John', 2], ['Jim', 9]]
>>>

You can use the sorted method with a key.

sorted(a, key=lambda x : x[1])