Zerodha co-founders Nithin and Nikhil Kamath and Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny Bansal have emerged as India’s youngest billionaires in this year’s Forbes list.

Nikhil Kamath, 37, leads the youngest billionaires’ list with a wealth of $3.1 billion, while his elder brother Nithin, 44, has an estimated $4.6 billion asset. Nikhil Kamath, a school dropout, took up his first job at a call centre later and then began to trade stocks.

He co-founded discount brokerage Zerodha in 2010 with his older brother Nithin Kamath. It went on to disrupt the brokerage market in India. The Bangalore-based Zerodha, has 10 million clients, making it one of the largest brokerage firms in the country, said Forbes.

Binny Bansal, who founded Flipkart with Sachin Bansal in 2007 as an online book seller, has a net worth of $1.4 billion.

India adds 25 new faces

The relentless rally in the stock market has added 25 new faces from India to the Forbes billionaires list. The debutants include Naresh Trehan, a leading cardiac surgeon-turned-healthcare entrepreneur, who owns and runs the Medanta chain of hospitals and Ramesh Kunhikannan, founder of Kaynes Technology.

The combined wealth of Indian billionaires increased 41 per cent to $954 billion against $675 billion last year.

With a wealth of $116 billion, Mukesh Ambani became the first Asian to break into the exclusive $100 billion club on the World’s Billionaires list. His wealth has increased 40 per cent from $83 billion recorded last year as the share of his company Reliance Industries zoomed. Ambani retained his position as the ninth richest person in the world and remains both India’s and Asia’s richest person.

Gautam Adani, who successfully battled out the controversy surrounding his business empire, saw his wealth increase by $37 billion to $84 billion and was second wealthiest in India.

The richest woman in India, Savitri Jindal moved up two notches to fourth place with a net worth of $33.5 billion.

Drop outs

Among the businessmen who dropped out of this year’s billionaires list include Vedanta Group, chairman, Anil Agarwal; BYJU’s Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath; Solar Industries’ Satyanarayan Nuwal;

Info Edge’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani; Embassy Group, chairman and MD, Jitendra Virwani; Clean Science & Technology, MD, Ashok Ramnarayan Boob; Relaxo Footwear founders Ramesh Kumar and Mukand Lal Dua and Vinati Organics, founder, Vinod Saraf.

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