Steel king Lakshmi Mittal beats Ambani brothers to retain richest Indian crown

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Ten newcomers have made the cut this time, including Guatam Adani, who built Mundra Port on India's west coast; Anand Jain, Mukesh Ambani's school buddy; and Gautum Thapar, whose Ballarpur Industries is India's largest paper maker.

"The red-hot real estate sector churned out a couple more billionaires as well: Niranjan Hiranandani, a surgeon's son, who built a thriving township in suburban Mumbai, along with his brother; and Rakesh Wadhawan, whose July listing of his company Housing Development & Infrastructure made him a billionaire," the report published on November 14, said.

The other five new entrants to the list of 40 richest Indians are Cyrus Poonawalla, L Madhusudhan Rao, Vikas Oberoi, Anu Aga and Gracias Saldanha.

To feature in the rich list of 2007, one's net worth should be minimum of $1.6 billion, up from $790 million last year. And, consequently, some of the billionaires, whose names have featured regularly in the list in the past, have failed to make the cut this time. They are are Naresh Goyal, the founder of Jet Airways, (despite his fortune rising 55 percent to $1.55 billion), Nandan Nilekani ($1.26 billion) and Senapathy Gopalakrishnan ($1.18 billion), co-founders of India’s IT bellwether Infosys Technologies, self-made billionaire Jignesh Shah ($1.37 billion), who built India's largest commodities exchange, Habil Khorakiwala ($1.23 billion) of pharmaceutical giant Wockhardt and Brijmohan Lall Munjal ($1.12 billion) of Hero Honda Motors. Also missing from the list are pharmaceuticals entrepreneur Murali K. Divi, India's bullish investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, pharmaceutical major Cipla’s Yusuf Hamied, real estate majors Parsvnath Developers and Omaxe's Pradeep Jain and Rohtas Goel respectively, Mahindra & Mahindra group’s patriarch Keshub Mahindra, JM Financial’s Nimesh Kampani and Pantaloon Retail’s Kishore Biyani.

Besides having a minimum net worth of $1.6 billion, one must be an Indian citizen to make this list. As a result, Forbes explained, "construction magnate Pallonji Mistry, Tata Sons' largest shareholder, who has become an Irish citizen" has been excluded from the list.

Explaining the methodology, Forbes said that "unlike our annual billionaires list, this ranking has been broadened to include family fortunes."

"Net worths were calculated using Nov. 2 market prices and exchange rates. Privately held companies are valued by comparing them to similar publicly traded companies," Forbes said.

INDIA'S TEN RICHEST (net worth – industry – primary enterprise)

1. Lakshmi Mittal ($51 billion – steel – ArcelorMittal))

2. Mukesh Ambani ($49 billion – petrochemicals – Reliance Industries)

3. Anil Ambani ($45 billion – telecommunications – Reliance Communications)

4. Kushal Pal Singh ($35 billion – real estate – DLF Ltd)

5. Azim Premji ($14.8 billion – IT services – Wipro Technologies)

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