In changing sweepstakes in world's billionaire club, India's Anil Ambani has emerged as the biggest wealth creator, while famed American investor Warren Buffett has overtaken software czar Bill Gates and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim to lead the list of world's richest people released by Forbes on Thursday.
As many as four Indians -- steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, his estranged younger brother Anil and realty baron K P Singh -- have made it to top 10 positions, as against just one, Mittal, a year ago.
India has retained its position as the top source of billionaires in Asia with total 53 people, who have a cumulative networth of $ 340.9 billion on Forbes' 2008
World's Billionaires list, consisting of 1,125 people with a combined wealth of $ 4.4 trillion. A year ago, there were just 179 billionaires, Forbes said.
With a networth of $62 billion, Buffett has topped the list, followed by Carlos Slim Helu ($60 billion) and Bill Gates ($58 billion) on second and third positions.
These three are followed by three Indians - Lakshmi Mittal ($45 billion), Mukesh ($43 billion) and Anil ($ 42 billion) on fourth, fifth and sixth ranks.
Besides, DLF's K P Singh ($30 billion) has been ranked, after Sweden's Ingvar Kamprad ($31 billion).
Other two in the top 10 are Russia's Oleg Deripaska ($ 28 billion) and Germany's Karl Albrecht ($27 billion).
Forbes said that Anil Ambani is the biggest gainer with wealth soaring by $23.8 billion since the last list. He is only $ 1 billion behind his brother Mukesh, who is the second biggest gainer with a rise of $ 22.9 billion in his networth.
Lakshmi Mittal has gained $13 billion from last year, pushing him one place higher to fourth rank this year.
Among Indians, Mittal, Ambanis and Singh are followed by Essar group's Shashi and Ravi Ruia at 43rd rank globally with a combined networth of $15 billion, Wipro's Azim Premji (60th with $12.7 billion), Sunil Mittal and family (64th with $11.8 billion) and Kumar Birla (76th with $10.2 billion).
These are followed by Unitech's Ramesh Chandra (86th with $9.6 billion), Guatam Adani (91st with $9.3 billion), Savitri Jindal (110th with $8.2 billion), Anil Agarwal (164th with $ 6 billion), Adi Godrej (178th with $ 5.5 billion) and GMR's G M Rao (198th with $5.2 billion).
Forbes said that the number of billionaires has crossed into four figures for the first time and two-third of them are self-made billionaires, having built their empires from scratch.
The total number of Asian billionaires jumped by a third to 211, with a total wealth of $ 804 billion, up from $ 552 billion last year. The latest list is based on networth valued as on February 11.
India is followed by China (42), Hong Kong (26) and Japan (24) as the top source of billionaires in Asia.
The list has 469 US billionaires with a total of $ 1.6 trillion wealth, while there are 656 non-US billionaires worth a total of $ 2.8 billion.
Another Indian businessman Guatam Adani has emerged as Asia's richest newcomer to the list with a networth of $9.3 billion, while Anand Jain -- a friend of Reliance
Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani -- is the sixth richest newcomer with $3.4 billion. In Asia, China and India are the two top countries for newcomers with 28 and 19 billionaires respectively.
