Mukesh Ambani has retained his position as the richest Indian for the eighth year in a row with a net worth of $21 billion, while moving up one place on the global rich list that has been topped once again by software czar Bill Gates.

Among the 90 Indians on the Forbes Rich List 2015, published today, Ambani (39th globally) is closely followed by pharmaceuticals business tycoon Dilip Shanghvi (44th rank with net worth of $20 billion) and Azim Premji (48th with $19.1 billion). Gates with a net worth $79.2 billion tops Forbes Rich List.

This is for the 16th time in the past 21 years the software czar is topping the list. He is followed by Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu at the second and legendary American investor Warren Buffett at the third place.

Announcing the list, Forbes said ranks of the world's wealthiest defied global economic turmoil and expanded yet again, yielding a record 1,826 billionaires with an aggregate net worth of $7.05 trillion, up from $6.4 trillion a year ago. Indians on the list include Shiv Nadar (66th; $14.8 billion), Hinduja Brothers (69th; $14.5 billion) Lakshmi Mittal (82nd; $ 13.5 billion), Kumar Mangalam Birla (142nd; $9 billion), Uday Kotak (185th; $7.2 billion), Gautam Adani (208th; $6.6 billion), Sunil Mittal (208th; $6.6 billion) and Cyrus Poonawalla (208th; $6.6 billion).

Anil Ambani with a net worth of $4 billion is ranked 418th in the list.