Mukesh, Anil Ambani among world's most powerful people

LONDON: After making their way into the league of richest persons, India's warring billionaire brothers, Mukesh and Anil Ambani, have been named together among the world's 100 most influential and powerful people by British fashion magazine Vanity Fair.

Ambani brothers are ranked at the 67th place in the 100 list which is topped by Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin while media baron Rupert Murdoch is in the second spot.

"The economy may be in shambles, but the moguls of the 100 list are still moving, shaking, merging and acquiring, the magazine said in an accompanying report.

The founders of search engine major Google -- Sergey Brin, Larry Page --and its CEO Eric Schmidt have been ranked at the third spot.



Apple's chief executive and the brain behind iPods and iPhones -- Steve Jobs has cornered fourth rank followed by legendary American investor Warren Buffet in the fifth place.

India-origin venture capitalist Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures is ranked at the 92nd position.

Both Mukesh and Anil together have a combined net worth of 85 billion dollars and they inherited their father's sprawling industrial conglomerate in 2002, "but never figured how to play together nicely".

Later in 2005, the business was split with Mukesh getting the oil, gas, and petrochemical business while Anil got the telecom and banking operations.

"Already a big player in Bollywood, Anil is on the cusp of buying into DreamWorks with a USD500-million-plus capital investment. He also plans to finance films for the production companies of George Clooney, Tom Hanks, and Brad Pitt," Vanity Fair said.