36 Indians in Forbes list

Riding high on the robust stock markets and real estate sector, as many as 36 Indian billionaires have made their entry into the elite Forbes list, an increase of nine over the last year. The number of Chinese in the list at 15 is less than half of Indians.

The third annual rankings of India's top 40 wealthiest, prepared by Forbes magazine, showed that the collective fortune of these people swelled to $170 billion (way ahead of the sum total of their Chinese counterparts "� which is at $38 billion) against last year's $106 billion.

The top 10 of them had a combined wealth of $112 billion, two-third of the collective figure of top 40. The cut-off mark for the top 40 list was at $790 million, considerably higher than last year's $590 million.

However, there was no surprise at the top slot. The London-based steel baron Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, 56, continues to grab the seat with $25 billion net worth.

The Ambani brothers "� Mukesh and Anil who separated their business empires last year "� pushed Wipro's Azim Premji, India's richest resident for many years, to the fourth place. Mukesh Ambani had a net worth of $18.5 billion while Anil Ambani's fortune stood at $14.80 billion. Mukesh's wealth went up by $11.5 billion while Anil's fortune rose by $9.3 billion. Premji's net worth stood at $14 billion.

Five new entrants in the list are Unitech promoter Ramesh Chandra ($5.3 billion), who made a fortune building middle-class housing; Kalanithi Maran ($1.90 billion), who runs regional broadcaster Sun TV; Keshub Mahindra ($930 million), chairman of the country's top utility vehicle maker and largest tractor company Mahindra & Mahindra; Jignesh Shah ($840 million), who set up the country's largest commodities bourse Multi Commodity Exchange; and K Dinesh ($790 million) Infosys Technologies co-founder.

There were seven drop-outs, including Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman of the biopharmaceuticals company due to a sharp 26 per cent reduction in the Biocon stock in one year.

The biggest loser was Anurag Dikshit who witnessed the stock of his his company "� PartyGaming "� tanking over regulatory issues.

Among big industrialists, the combined fortune of Shashi and Ravi Ruias at $4.10 billion has remained unchanged at the 12th position.