Dawood rubs shoulders with Sonia Gandhi, Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata in Forbes' World's Most Powerful People list

Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Mukesh Ambani, Lakshmi Mittal, Ratan Tata and Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar are the six Indians featuring in the latest World's Most Powerful People list of Forbes magazine, announced today.

The American business magazine featured 68 powerful people in the list, with Chinese President Hu Jintao heading it, while Julian Assange the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, was ranked 68th. Congress president Sonia Gandhi was ranked as the world's ninth most powerful people.

''Despite Italian birth, foreign religion (Roman Catholic) and political reluctance, Gandhi wields unequaled influence over 1.2 billion Indians,'' noted the magazine, adding that she was recently elected ''to record fourth term as head of India's ruling Congress Party, cementing status as true heiress to the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty.''

The magazine described her as ''the real power behind the nuclear-tipped throne,'' and said she was grooming her 40-year-old son Rahul for the prime minister's post.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh – ranked 18th – was described by the magazine as ''soft-spoken Oxford-trained economist credited with transforming India's quasi-socialist economy into world's second-fastest growing.''

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani – who also figures in other Forbes lists, including Billionaires (ninth in the world) and India's Richest (second) – he is the 34th most powerful individual in the world, according to the magazine.