An employee looks at Indian rupee currency notes at a bank in Mumbai
 
Indranil Mukherjee/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
For the first time India has more billionaires than any other country outside the U.S. and China, according to an annual list of the world’s richest individuals released this week.
The 2015 rich list, compiled by China-based luxury publishing group Huran Report,said that India’s richest had benefited from a bump in the value of the stock market and that falls in wealth among Russians and Britons pushed the South Asian nation into the top three for the first time in the history of the rankings.
There are now 97 Indian billionaires compared to 93 Russians who are worth at least one billion dollars, the report said.
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The year before, India ranked fifth behind the United Kingdom – where this time the overall wealth of billionaires dropped by 10% in part because of a decline in growth of the London Stock Exchange .
The report described 5% of India’s super-wealthy as “self-made, but with a helping hand from parents”, while 9% “inherited a small business and grew it big time.” In China however, the report said 61% of billionaires were “self-made” without any financial support from their families.
Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries is still India’s most wealthy: his fortune of $20 billion means he remains 41st on the global list for a second year running. He is the only Indian to make it into the top 50.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the richest man on the list with a fortune of $85 billion, followed by Mexican business tycoon Carlos Slim with $82 billion and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett with $76 billion. Collectively their fortunes total $244 billion, equivalent to $100,000 earned a minute over the past year, according to the report, which offers a snapshot of wealth held by the world’s richest people, as calculated on Jan. 17 this year.
Russia’s stagnating economy and tumbling currency as well as Western-imposed sanctions in response to the conflict in the Ukraine and a fall in the oil price saw 10 Russians slip out of the list. Even among those Russians that continue to be listed, the majority (60%) saw their wealth plummet. Worst effected was Vladimir Yevtushenkov of conglomerate Sistema who lost a staggering $8.1 billion, or 77% of his fortune, over the past year.
Conversely, most of the super-rich in India saw their bank balances grow thanks to a 32% gain in the value of the Indian stock market over the past year, the report said. The biggest gainer in percentage terms was Anand Mahindra of conglomerate Mahindra Group, whose wealth climbed 80% year on year.
Meanwhile, 27 Indians were added to the list this year. Anand Burman, chairman of consumer goods maker Dabur India Ltd. was the highest ranked debutant from India at 201st.
It wasn’t a good year for every Indian in the club however. Of the 20 Indian billionaires who suffered a loss in their fortunes in the past year, India’s wealthiest woman, Savriti Jindal of Jindal Steel and Power, was hit the hardest, with a fall of 49% ($2.6 billion) in her family’s wealth, the report said.

More In billionaires

Most of India’s billionaires – who have a combined fortune of $266 billion – have accumulated their wealth in the manufacturing and pharmaceutical sectors, the report said. Globally, most billionaires are involved in the technology, media and telecommunications industry. Almost 300 made their fortunes in this industry, including 12 Indians such as Wipro’s Azim Premji and HCL Technologies ' Shiv Nadar.
The U.S. and China dominate the list, collectively accounting for almost half of the world’s 2,089 billionaires. The U.S. has 537 and China – which added more billionaires over the past year than any other country – has 430.
New York has the highest concentration of billionaires of any city in the world with 91 residing in the U.S. state, according to the report. Mumbai, India’s financial capital, has 40 people worth over a billion U.S. dollars making it the sixth most billionaire-rich city in the world,  one spot behind London.
As a continent, Asia leads the way with 943 billionaires, Huran Report said, including 56% of the new entrants.
Top Indians
41. Mukesh Ambani, $20 billion dollars, Reliance Industries, Energy
53. Dilip Shanghvi, $17 billion, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Pharma
60. Pallonji Mistry and family, $16 billion, Tata Sons, Manufacturing
74. Azim Premji, $14 billion, Wipro, Technology
104. Shiv Nadar, $11billion, HCL Technologies, Technology
120. Kumar Birla, $10billion, Aditya Birla Group, Cement
120. Sunil Mittal and family, $10billion, Bharti Airtel Ltd., Telecom
201. Anand Burman and family, $5.8billion, Dabur Ayurvedic Natural Health Care Products India, Fast moving consumer goods
218. Uday Kotak, $5.4 billion, Kotak Mahindra Banking
240. Gautam Adani, $4.8 billion, Adani Enterprise Construction
New Indian Entrants
201. Anand Burman and family, $5.8 billion, Dabur Ayurvedic Natural Health Care Products India, Fast moving consumer goods
358. PV Ramaprasad Reddy, $3.1 billion, Aurobindo Pharma, Pharma
403. Nitin Sandesara, $2.8 billion, Sandesara Group, Energy
447. Vivek Chaand Sehgal, $2.7 billion, Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd., Manufacturing
932. Nusli Wadia, $1.9 billion, Britannia Industries, Fast moving consumer goods
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