INDIA’S RICHEST 100 - 2017 FORBES LIST -GOOD LUCK TO ALL

INDIA’S RICHEST 100

2017 FORBES LIST

Every Year, Forbes compiles a List of the Richest 100 in the world and separately, the Richest 100 in India. 

Who is progressing faster, why and how, are all examined by Forbes in compiling the List. It is highly informative for all budding Entrepreneurs and ambitious young men - which phrase includes men and women of all ages, whose hearts are filled with dreams and ambitions. 

Why is India still a country with predominantly Poor people? That is because, people generally lack ambition, initiative and drive. Ours is a country in which the most powerful sections of people want to be branded as BACKWARD, which term actually indicates a mindset and not just the present physical state.   

That mindset should go and be replaced with a forward looking mindset of “I CAN”, “I AM COMPETENT”, “I WILL ACHIEVE” and so on. India should discourage the BACKWARD MINDSET absolutely totally. There can be temporarily POOR  people, but there should not be BACKWARD people. It is a MINDSET.

Now, the List of 100 RICHEST Indians is of forward looking people, from all castes and religions, as you will find. They are an inspiration to all Indians.

Aspire, Strive and Achieve – is the motto of all these 100 Richest men and women – and of countless others  who are struggling to enter into this list.  You, the reader and I, the writer, must also be in this latter category of Aspirants. Let us thank the Forbes for inspiring us to be ambitious achievers.

Here is the List :

Rank	Name	Net Worth (In $ Billion)	Company	Age
1	Mukesh Ambani	38	Reliance Industries	60
2	Azim Premji	19	Wipro	72
3	Hinduja brothers	18.4	Ashok Leyland	81, 76, 71, 66
4	Lakshmi Mittal	16.5	Arcelormittal	67
5	Pallonji Mistry	16	Shapoorji Pallonji Group	88
6	Godrej family	14.2	Godrej Group	NA
7	Shiv Nadar	13.6	HCL Technologies	72
8	Kumar Birla	12.6	Aditya Birla Group	50
9	Dilip Shanghvi	12.1	Sun Pharmaceutical Industries	61
10	Gautam Adani	11	Adani Ports & SEZ	55
11	Uday Kotak	10.5	Kotak Mahindra Bank	58
12	Radhakishan Damani	9.3	Avenue Supermarts	62
13	Cyrus Poonawalla	8.9	Serum Institute Of India	76
14	Sunil Mittal	8.3	Bharti Airtel	60
15	Bajaj family	8	Bajaj Auto	NA
16	Savitri Jindal	7.5	O.P. Jindal Group	67
17	Vikram Lal	7.2	Eicher Motors	75
18	Benu Gopal Bangur	6.6	Shree Cement	86
19	Acharya Balkrishna	6.55	Patanjali Ayurved	45
20	Burman Family	6.5	Dabur	NA
21	Subhash Chandra	6	Essel Group	66
22	Pankaj Patel	5.9	Cadila Healthcare	64
23	Vivek Chaand Sehgal	5.85	Motherson Sumi Sytems	60
24	Kushal Pal Singh	5.7	DLF	86
25	Nusli Wadia	5.6	Britannia Industries	73
26	Ajay Piramal	5.2	Piramal Enterprises	62
27	M.A. Yusuff Ali	5	LuLu Group	61
28	Madhukar Parekh	4.75	Pidilite Industries	71
29	Kalanithi Maran	4.55	Sun TV Network	52
30	Pawan Munjal	4.5	Hero Motocorp	63
31	Kapil & Rahul Bhatia	4.4	Interglobe Aviation	Kapil,85, Rahul,57
32	Micky Jagtiani	4.3	Landmark Group	66
33	Harsh Mariwala	4.2	Marico	66
34	B.R. Shetty	3.9	NMC Health	75
35	Ravi Pillai	3.8	RP Group	64
36	Mangal Prabhat Lodha	3.75	Lodha Group	61
37	Kuldeep & Gurbachan Singh Dhingra	3.7	Berger Paints India	Kuldeep, 70 Gurbachan,67
38	Karsanbhai Patel	3.6	Nirma	73
39	Ashwin Dani	3.5	Asian Paints	74
40	Gupta Family	3.45	Lupin	NA
41	Shashi & Ravi Ruia	3.4	Essar Group	Shashi,73, Ravi,68
42	Sudhir & Samir Mehta	3.35	Torrent Group	Sudhir,63, Samir,54
43	Samprada Singh	3.3	Alkem Laboratories	91
44	Anil Agarwal	3.2	Vedanta Resources	64
45	Anil Ambani	3.15	Reliance Communications	58
46	P.V. Ramprasad Reddy	3.14	Aurobindo Pharma	59
47	Baba Kalyani	3.13	Bharat Forge	68
48	Vinod & Anil Rai Gupta	3.11	Havells	Vinod,72 Anil,48
49	Sameer Gehlaut	3.1	Indiabulls Group	43
50	Hasmukh Chudgar	3.05	Intas Pharmaceuticals	84
51	Jain Family	3	Bennett Coleman & Co.	NA
52	Ashwin Choksi	2.95	Asian Paints	74
53	Rajan Raheja	2.9	Exide Industries	63
54	Rakesh Jhunjhunwala	2.8	Rare Enterprises	57
55	Kishore Biyani	2.75	Future Group	56
56	Abhay Vakil	2.71	Asian Paints	66
57	Chandru Raheja	2.7	K. Raheja Corp	77
58	M.G. George Muthoot	2.67	Muthoot Finance	67
59	Abhay Firodia	2.65	Force Motors	72
60	Yusuf Hamied	2.62	Cipla	81
61	Rajesh Mehta	2.6	Rajesh Exports	53
62	Vijay Chauhan	2.5	Parle Products	81
63	Amalgamations Group family	2.48	Tractors & Farm Equipment	NA
64	Jai Hari and Yadu Hari Dalmia	2.45	Dalmia Bharat	Jai Hari,73, Yadu Hari,70
65	Sunny Varkey	2.4	GEMS Education	60
66	Murugappa family	2.38	Murugappa Group	NA
67	Rajendra Agarwal	2.3	Macleods Pharmaceuticals	58
68	Harsh Goenka	2.28	RPG Group	59
69	Sunil Vaswani	2.25	Stallion Group	54
70	Jitendra Virwani	2.2	Embassy Property Development	51
71	Leena Tewari	2.19	USV India	60
72	Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw	2.16	Biocon	64
73	Sanjiv Goenka	2	RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group	56
74	Lachhman Das Mittal	1.98	Sonalika Group	86
75	Murli Dhar & Bimal Gyanchandani	1.96	RSPL	NA
76	Mofatraj Munot	1.95	Kalpataru	72
77	Murali Divi	1.94	Divi's Laboratories	66
78	Ramesh Juneja	1.92	Mankind Pharma	64
79	Anurag Jain	1.91	Endurance Technologies	55
80	Ranjan Pai	1.9	Manipal Group	44
81	Vikas Oberoi	1.87	Oberoi Realty	47
82	Ravi Jaipuria	1.84	RJ Corp	62
83	Salil Singhal	1.83	PI Industries	70
84	N.R. Narayana Murthy	1.82	Infosys	71
85	Nirav Modi	1.8	Firestar Diamond	46
86	Rajju Shroff	1.77	UPL	83
87	Sunder Genomal	1.75	Page Industries	63
88	Dinesh Nandwana	1.72	Vakrangee	54
89	Nandan Nilekani	1.71	Infosys	62
90	Radhe Shyam Agarwal	1.64	Emami	72
90	Radhe Shyam Goenka	1.64	Emami	71
92	Senapathy Gopalakrishnan	1.61	Infosys	62
93	Satish Mehta	1.6	Emcure Pharmaceuticals	66
94	Shamsheer Vayalil	1.57	VPS Healthcare	40
95	Shyam & Hari Bhartia	1.56	Jubilant Group	Shyam,64, Hari,60
96	Anand Mahindra	1.54	Mahindra & Mahindra	62
97	Reddy family	1.53	Dr. Reddy's Laboratories	NA
98	Arvind Poddar	1.48	Balkrishna Industries	59
99	Vijay Shekhar Sharma	1.47	Paytm	39
100	Rana Kapoor	1.46	Yes Bank	60

Significant drop outs in the list, from the list of Last year are the Ruias of Essar and the Guptas of Lupin. You never know, they may get back into the List  an year or two later. All Pharma companies are somewhat down right now including Dilip Sanghvi of Sun Pharma. But, Pharma will come up in a year or two - in my opinion.

Significant New Entrants are (1) Acharya Balakrishna of Patanjali Ayurved and (2) Sameer Gehlout of India Bulls Group. Acharya Balakrishna has shot into the Group with the stupendous reputation enjoyed by  Patanjali products. It would be interesting to watch its progress year after year.

If you look at No.1 and No.2, the difference in their wealth is exactly 100%. 38 Billions of Mukesh Ambani Vs 19 of Azim Premji . 

Business Success depends on lots of Initiative and some amount of luck too perhaps. And, Fortune favours the Brave. Admittedly, nobody in India has undertaken the sort of initiative that Mukesh Ambani has undertaken - especially in his Telecom Venture of Jio. But, in my opinion, he needs to be very cautious in promoting Chinese mobiles or any other Chinese Apps in JIO. Let JIO be qualitatively the BEST.

Radhakishan Damani has shot into the list at No.12, with the Listing of Avenue Supermarts (or D Mart) and shooting up of its share price nicely. Rakesh Jhunkhunwallah considers him as his Guru. Rakesh is now at 54.

Aurobindo Pharma is promising...and promising...its R&D is impressive. But, it is not translating into impressive Sales and Profits. Some day,it will meet investors' expectations. When?

Indian Pharma companies must do something qualitatively far superior to all others - and become the world's BEST and most sought after. They can. They must come up with the world's Best Ideas and Best Products in Health care. Currently , they are following the Beaten Track.

Indian Software Companies, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, HCL tech and others - are also floundering. They are just project Managers, not product innovators.  Capability is not lacking. Initiative is lacking. When a project goes, they tend to retrench people. Why can't they use them for creating new products. 

Some time ago, Modi also said, why can't you make an Indian Google, Indian Face Book, Indian Amazon or some thing nobody ever thought of? Why not? A project Manager,however efficient, is still in the servant mode. A Product Innovator is the Master of the world. Well. Our Software Companies must come out of their Shell.

Azim Premji is doing lot of Charities. But, can Wipro come up with a product beating Windows, Oracle or Google? Your Charities are good.I appreciate that a lot. But, why does Wipro lay off some of its software professionals instead of asking them to make some of the world's best products? Why are TCS, Infosys, HCL Tech and every other Indian Software Company not even thinking of making a world's best product? Why?

There is a story doing the rounds. The US President once asked Bill gates, why are you using so many Indian software professionals from IITs etc. Bill Gates is reported to have replied that, if he does not employ them, India will be making the next Windows! Bill gates knows that Indian Entrepreneurs are yet to come out of the PROJECT MANAGER MODE. And he is safe. But, when will we do it? God knows.

The world's riches men are all product innovators, not Project Managers. I am going through the entire Indian Richest 100 list. I find NO PRODUCT INNOVATOR. The one who comes somewhat close is - Acharya Balakrishna of Patanjali Ayurved.

Well. I mean no contempt for our India's Best 100. They are our Best. No doubt. I repeat, they are our Best. I just want all of them to be the world's Best.

Good Luck to all of the Young Men and women who are aspirants to be in this List.

(v.vijayamohan)