1	richest, Indians

Forbes magazine has published the richest Indians list. Not surprisingly, the list looks different from 2007. Not in terms of the people in it but the wealth they have. The wealth has reduced significantly. There has been quite a war between Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal for a while. The war continues. Mukesh Ambani has surpassed Lakshmi Mittal by $300 million to become the richest Indian. The whole media flaunted a title : “Mukesh Ambani pips Lakshmi Mittal“. Give me a break, will ya. What is there to pip here? It is only $300 million and that could mean a one good week of rally in the stock market.

The list is dominated by Mittals and Ambani’s. The first four places were shared between them. The list read, Mukesh Ambani, Lakshmi Mittal, Anil Ambani, Sunil Mittal. Infosys ex-CEO and mentor Narayana Murthy does not have a billion dollars yet. The youngest billionaires (age 36) on the list are Malvinder & Shivinder Singh who just sold their stake in Ranbaxy to a Japanese company.

The total net worth of Indian billionaires fell from 351 bn in 2007 to 139 bn.

Check out the complete list below with net worth in the brackets:

1. Mukesh Ambani ($20.8 bn) : Reliance Industries (Oil & Gas)
2. Lakshmi Mittal ( $20.5 bn) : Arcelor-Mittal (Steel)
3. Anil Ambani ( $12.5 bn) : Reliance ADAG (Telecom, power etc..)
4. Sunil Mittal ( $7.9 bn) : Bharti Airtel (Telecom)
5. Kushal Pal Singh ($7.8 bn) : DLF (real estate)
6. Shashi & Ravi Ruia  ($7.6 bn) : Essar Group (Telecom & Oil)
7. Aziz Premji ($7 bn) : Wipro Technologies (IT/BPO)
8. Kumar Birla ($5 bn) : Aditya Birla group (Commodities conglomerate :  Hindalco, Spice Communicati ons)
9. Adi Godrej ($4 bn) : Godrej Group (consumer products)
10. Gautam Adani ($3.8 bn) : Adani Enterprises ( Power, infrastructure, Mundra Port)
11. Dilip Sanghvi ($3.1 bn) : Sun Pharmaceutical industries
12. Savitri Jindal ($2.9 bn) : Jindal Group ( Iron ore mines, oil exploration)
13. Malvinder & Shivinder Singh ($2.8 bn) : Ranbaxy laboratories (sold their stake to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo and are acting chairman and CEO)
14. Anil Agarwal ($2.4 bn) : Vedanta Resources ( metals and mining group)
15. Shiv Nadir ($2.2 bn) : HCL Group
16. Micky Jagtiani ($2 bn) : Landmark group
17. Indu Jain ($1.8 bn) : Bennett Coleman& Co (Times of India, Times Now, Zoom, Virgin Radio)
18. Cyrus Poonawalla ($1.6 bn) : Serum Institute of India ( children vaccine maker)
19. Uday Kotak ($1.55 bn) : Kotak Mahindra Bank
20. Chandru Raheja ($1.5 bn) : Raheja Group ( Real estate)
21. G.M. Rao ($1.47 bn) : GMR Infrastructure ( Infrastructure)
22. Vivek Burman ($1.3 bn) : Dabur Industries (Sold family stake in Dabur in April)
23. Anurag Dikshit ($1.25 bn) : PartyGaming (online gambling — sold his stake)
24. Kalanithi Maran ($1.2 bn) : Sun TV network ( south indian channels, 45 fm stations and DTH services)
25. Venugopal Dhoot ($1.1 bn) : Videocon (Consumer electronics, recently telecom, oil, power)
26. Yusuf Hamied ($1.06 bn) : Cipla (Pharma)
27. Ramesh Chandra ($1 bn) : Unitech (real estate and recently telecom)
28. Subash Chandra ($970 mn) : Essel Group ( Zee TV, Indian Cricket League, DishTV)
29. N.R. Narayana Murthy ($965 mn)  : Infosys (former CEO and now mentor)
30. Rajan Raheja ($950 mn) : Rajan Raheja Group ( cement, batteries, floor tiles, Outlook magazine)
31. Brijmohan Lall Munjal ($940 mn) : Hero Group ( Hero Honda bikes)
32. Baba Kalyani ($935 mn) : Bharat Forge ( forgings and auto-components maker)
33. Tulsi Tanti ($930 mn) : Suzlon Energy ( Wind Energy)
34. Jaiprakash Gaur ($890 mn) : Jaypee Group (Power & infrastructure, building the formula one race track in Delhi)
35. Niranjan Hirandani ($885 mn) : Hirandani Constructions  (real estate)
36. Murali Divi ($870 mn): Divi Laboratories (Pharma)
37. Hemant Shah ($830 mn) : Akruti City (real estate)
38. Gracias Saldanha ($825 mn): Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (Pharma)
39. Anand Jain ($810 mn): Jai Corp
40. Rahul Bajaj ($790 mn): Bajaj Group (Auto sector, engineering, steel)

Why is my name not on that list? Oh! that’s a long story. The minimum criteria was $760 million and I fell short by well $759.9999 million. Not much but apparently they count every paisa.  (source)