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Nine Indians make it to world's richest list: AFP

Nine Indians have made it to the Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people -- half of them riding on the back of the booming information technology sector.

The highest-ranked Indian on the list in 38th place was Azim Hasham Premji, whose net worth rose 150 per cent from last year to $ 6.9 billion.

Premji made waves in February when he was counted among the top five richest men due to a surge in the share prices of his IT firm Wipro Corporation, although a subsequent stock plunge saw his net worth drop back.

Despite his massive personal fortune, the 54-year-old Stanford University dropout still drives a Ford Escort, flies economy class and dislikes being called rich.

Premji hopes to get a US listing this year, mainly to finance overseas acquisitions and was recently appointed Microsoft's development partner in India.

Close on his heels in 40th place was Dhirubhai Ambani, who escaped childhood poverty in his native state of Gujarat to take up a petty job in Aden.

Today he presides over a $ 6.6-billion empire that includes India's largest petrochemicals manufacturer, Reliance Industries, which has interests in telecommunications, power and infrastructure development, and is planning a major move into the infotech sector.

Ambani's stock price jumped 37 per cent after US President Bill Clinton had a personal meeting with him during his March tour of South Asia.

Shiv Nadar, a former marketing executive, ranked 126th in the Forbes list but was the third richest Indian with a $ 3.7-billion fortune from his IT group HCL, started from a garage in 1976.

Nadar owns the majority of the group's three listed companies, which offer software research and development for some of the world's biggest telecom companies and also manufacture personal computers.

Nadar, who has a low-key lifestyle and professes an "aversion to swanky foreign cars," says he maintains his sanity through meditation.

Former rice trader Subhash Chandra, who owns entertainment firm Zee Telefilms, similarly smokes cheap Indian cigarillos but operates out of a Bombay five-star hotel.

The Indian government recently gave Zee the go-ahead to raise $ 1.5 billion in the United States in the largest overseas offering by a local firm.

Chandra's fortune of $ 3 billion also comes from interests in a broadband internet service, radio packaging and amusement parks.

S Sen, deputy director of the Confederation of Indian Industry trade forum said the number of Indians on the Forbes list had increased from seven last year and was likely to keep on rising.

"Our IT sector is especially doing very well and much of what has happened is due to the spurt in the valuations of scrips. I would imagine more and more Indians will get listings from other emerging sectors that are also doing very well such as pharmaceuticals.

"The manufacturing sector is growing by 12-14 per cent ... there is a resurgence in the Indian industry," he said.

London-based Lakshmi Mittal and head of the world's fourth largest steel group Ispat International, created his $ 2.1-billion fortune by turning around state-owned dinosaurs.

The fifth richest Indian, Mittal owns steel mills in Uzbekistan and Indonesia and has launched Metique, a global procurement portal for metals.

Following him was Vinay Rai ($ 2 billion), who inherited a steel empire but diversified into software with his firm Information Technologies (India).

Similarly, Kumar Mangalam Birla inherited a $ 4-billion commodities empire and India's largest private sector mutual fund company. He went on to acquire Byte International, a US-based e-learning company and is worth $ 1.7 billion.

B Ramalinga Raju, a US-educated computer tycoon who owns India's fifth largest IT outfit, was next with assets of $ 1.3 billion. Raju owns Satyam Infoway, India's first IT service provider.

Occupying 299th spot on the Forbes list were the flamboyant Britain-based Hinduja brothers with a net worth of $ 1 billion. Dubbed the 'Fab Four', they made a one-million-pound donation for the 'faith section' of London's Millennium Dome.