Azim Premji is Indian IT's richest man

BANGALORE, INDIA: The Forbes list of billionaires that saw Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu retaining his crown beating the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, thanks to their philanthropy, also saw some interesting ups and downs. From among the tech giants in India, Azim Premji tops the list.

While Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani came down to the ninth position, who was overtaken by Lakshmi Mittal as world's richest Indian, who came at sixth position, there are 50 Indians in the Forbes list, including many figures from the IT and telecom fronts. Anil Ambani is ranked 103 with net worth of $8.8 billion.

Some notable Indians fro the tech front include Azim Premji who ranked 36 with $16.8 billion, Shiv Nadar (182, $5.6 billion), N.R. Narayana Murthy and family (595, $2 billion), Nandan Nilekani and family (692, $1.8 billion), Senapathy Gopalakrishnan (Kris) and family (782, $1.6 billion), K Dinesh and family (993, $1.2 billion), S.D. Shibulal and family (1057, $1.1 billion) and Bhupendra Kumar Modi (1057, $1.1 billion).

Interestingly, there are quite a few veterans in the IT industry in the global billionaires list, which also saw quite a few youngsters joining the bandwagon. Some of the other tech giants in the top list are: Larry Ellison (4, US, $39.5 billion, Oracle), Larry Page (24, US, $28 billion, Google), Sergey Brin (24, US, $28 billion, Google), Jeff Bezos: (30, US, $18.1 billion, Amazon), Azim Premji (36, India, $16.8 billion, Wipro), Michael Dell (44, US, $14.6 billion, Dell), Steve Ballmer (46, US, $14.5 billion, Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg, (52, US, $13.5 billion, Facebook), Paul Allen (57, US, $13 billion, Microsoft), Ananda Krishnan (93, Malaysia, $9.5 billion, Maxis Communications), Robin Li (95, China, $9.4 billion, Baidu), Steve Jobs (110, US, $8.3 billion, Apple), Eric Schmidt (136, US, $7.3 billion, Google), Hasso Plattner (141, Germany, $6.9 billion, SAP).

While Google contributed 10 people to the top list of 1,210 billionaires, Facebook's share is 6. Of the 1210, 102 are women, up from 89 in 2010.

Dustin Moskovitz of Facebook fame is the youngest billionaire in the world at 26, with a fortune of $2.7 billion, while the oldest billionaire is Swiss tech billionaire Walter Haefner, who is 100 and worth $4 billion.

©CyberMedia News