Savitri Jindal, mother of nine, is Asia's richest lady

Savitri Jindal, the 60-year-old widow of steel and power magnate O P Jindal, is Asia's richest woman. She has a net worth of $12.2 billion, according to a list compiled by Forbes.com of 70 billionaire women around the globe, who will celebrate Mother's Day on Sunday.

Savitri, 60, has nine children, the most of any woman billionaire in the list. Matriarch and non-executive chair of the OP Jindal Group, she took over as group head after her husband Om Prakash Jindal died in a helicopter crash in 2005.

During his lifetime, the patriarch had handed down operations to their four sons, Prithviraj, Sajjan, Ratan and Naveen, who today run independent units.

Savitri is also a Congress MLA from Hisar constituency in Haryana.

There are 70 billionaire moms in the world, and only eight of those women - including 'Meg' (Margaret C) Whitman of eBay and author J K Rowling - earned their own way to vast riches. But none of the self-starters are among the world's 10 richest moms, a group that is dominated by widows and daughters of the very rich.

Christy Walton, the widow of John Walton, son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, tops the list with $22.5 billion. She is followed by Liliane Bettencourt, 87, of France, whose father founded the cosmetic giant L'Oreal and Birgit Rausing, the 86-year-old widow of the Swedish creator of packaging giant Tetra Laval.