IndiaPost.com - India's top five billionaires

India’s richest of rich:

MUKESH AMBANI: Mukesh Ambani, 50, a chemical engineer, left his studies at Stanford University to join Reliance Industries Ltd, father Dhirubhai's flagship company, in 1981. He initiated the company's backward integration from textiles into polyester fibers and oil. He led the top private refiner's telecoms and retail forays. His wealth has risen sharply on a booming stock market in recent weeks, making him the richest resident Indian with about $45 billion.

ANIL AMBANI: Anil, Mukesh's younger brother, was ranked the third richest Indian in the world by Forbes magazine in March, but now owns shares worth about $37 billion to become the second richest Indian. Ambani, who has a business degree from Wharton, split from his brother in 2005, and now heads Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, which controls Reliance Communications, India's No. 2 mobile carrier. A keen marathon runner, Ambani's other listed firms include Reliance Capital and Reliance Energy. The forthcoming IPO of Reliance Power is expected to be the country's biggest.

KUSHAL PAL SINGH: - A real estate entrepreneur and an ex-army officer, Kushal Pal Singh, 76, owns shares worth about $34 billion in DLF, India's most valuable real estate firm. DLF's IPO, which raised about $2.3 billion earlier this year, is India's biggest to date. Singh is known as the architect of the DLF City, a sprawling satellite township in Gurgaon, near the capital New Delhi. SUNIL

BHARTI MITTAL: Sunil Mittal is an entrepreneur who set up his first business in 1976 with an investment of 20,000 rupees. After stints in making bicycle parts and India's first push-button telephones, he now controls the top mobile services firm, Bharti Airtel. He is partnering the world's largest retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc in India and is worth an estimated $30 billion. Mittal, who turns 50 this year, is no relation to steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal who lives in Britain.

AZIM PREMJI: Azim Premji, chairman of India's No. 3 software services exporter Wipro Ltd., owns about 80 percent of the Bangalore-based company. After the sudden death of his father in 1966, Premji took charge of Wipro at the age of 21 when the $2 million company was making cooking fat. Now it offers IT solutions to companies like Cisco and Nortel. One of the pioneers of information technology in India, Premji's Wipro also has interests in computer hardware, consumer goods and lighting. His net worth is estimated $14.5 billion. (*Wealth figures are based on current market capitalisation and subject to change.)