| Shining or otherwise, India is churning out more billionaires than before. Nine Indians have made it to Forbes' 2004 list of billionaires, up from seven in 2003, five in 2002 and four in 2001. |
| Premji is followed on the Forbes list by Laxmi Mittal ($6.2 billion) on the 62nd spot, Mukesh & Anil Ambani ($6 billion, 65th position), Kumar Mangalam Birla ($3.2 billion, 147), Sunil Mittal ($2.7 billion, 186), Pallonji Mistry ($2.3 billion, 231), Adi Godrej & family ($2 billion, 277), Shiv Nadar ($1.8 billion, 310) and Anil Agarwal ($1 billion, 552). The nine Indians together have a collective personal worth of $31.9 billion. |
| Sunil Mittal and Agarwal have made it to the coveted list for the first time. "From making bicycle parts in Ludhiana, a trading town in North India, Mittal is now India's leading telecom pioneer and the first private operator to launch cellular services in the country. A believer in lucky charms, Mittal travels in his ten-year-old Mercedes to important business meetings," Forbes notes about the chairman of Bharti Televentures. |
| It is worth noting that most of these Indian billionaires have seen a sizeable increase in their wealth last year. Between the 2003 and 2004 lists, Premji's wealth is up by $0.8 billion, Laxmi Mittal's wealth by a whopping $4 billion, Ambanis' by $3.2 billion, Birla's by $0.8 billion, Mistry's by $0.3 billion, Godrej's by $0.9 billion and Nadar's by $0.8 billion. |
| However, while Premji has slipped from number 45 to 58 between 2003 and 2004, Laxmi Mittal has leapfrogged from 177 to 62 and the Ambani brothers have improved heir ranking from 123 to 65. |
| Outside Japan, India is among the leading contributors to the list from Asia. Only two countries, Hong Kong (14) and Taiwan (10), have more billionaires in the list than India. |
| All other Asian countries "" Singapore (5), Malaysia (5) South Korea (2), Thailand (2), The Philippines (2), Indonesia (1) and China (1) "" are way behind India. |
| Once again, the 2004 global list is topped by Bill Gates with a personal fortune of $46.6 billion, followed by Warren Buffett ($42.9 billion). |
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