Does Money Equal Power?

Rich and powerful.

Not always, if you do a quick comparison of Forbes’s 2010 ranking of the world’s billionaires with this year’s edition of India Today‘s Power List, both of which were published this month. Only 17 of India’s 49 billionaires figure in the survey of the country’s 50 most powerful people (the figure includes the second richest Indian—and fifth most wealthy man in the world—steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who finds a place atop India Today‘s separate list of the “Top 20 Overseas Indians”).

Mukesh Ambani is the undisputed man-to-know as he figures in the top five of both the Forbes and India Today rankings. His net worth of $29 billion, makes him No. 4 on the former, and is one of the reasons he is No. 2 on the latter. Industrialist Ratan Tata, the most powerful Indian according to India Today, is absent from the Forbes list as are a number of actors (Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan) and sportspeople (Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni) that the national news weekly believes carry the most clout. The magazine published separate lists for politicians and advisers and interestingly ranked Parmeshwar Godrej the 44th most influential Indian in an individual capacity but excluded from their list her husband, Adi whose family empire makes him the No. 11 richest person in the nation according to Forbes.

The World’s Billionaires [Forbes]
50 Power People of India [India Today]