India's Richest Business Families The bull run in the stock markets has added fabulous wealth to India Inc.'s coffers.

It's like an elaborate game of snakes and ladders. There's astarting point, lots of ladders, a few snakes and lots of space forsideways movements. There's also a designated "Home" or finaldestination; but the game still carries on indefinitely, giving everylaggard a chance of catching up with the leaders.

The BSE Sensex has climbed from 3,000 (3,130.46 to be exact; thestarting point of our game) on May 28, 2003 to 7,076.52 on June 21,2005 (the first day the market closed over 7,000). A random samplingshows that during these 25 months, the promoters of India's 50 mostvaluable companies by market capitalisation increased theircollective net worth by a factor of at least …