Forbes Global 2000 list has 57 Indian Firms

As many as 57 Indian companies including Reliance Industries, State Bank of India and Oil & Natural Gas Corp. figure in The Forbes Global 2000 list of public companies based on their rankings for sales, profits, assets and market value.

Reliance with sales of $45.3 billion is ranked 121st in the list with three public State Bank of India Group (136, $29.1 billion), Oil & Natural Gas Corp. (172, 22.6 billion) and Indian Oil (243, $52.1 billion) taking the next three places among the Indian firms.

Other companies in India’s top ten were ICICI Bank (288, $13.2 billion), NTPC (348, $10.8 billion), Coal India (418, $10.4 billion), Bharti Airtel (453, $9.3 billion), Larsen & Toubro (499, $9.8 billion) and Tata Motors (512, $20.2 billion).

JPMorgan Chase is in the top spot for the second consecutive year as the world’s largest company followed by HSBC, up six spots fuelled by a 121 percent growth in profits in the past fiscal year.

In total, the Global 2000 companies now account for $32 trillion in revenues, $2.4 trillion in profits, $138 trillion in assets and $38 trillion in market value. These firms also employ 80 million people worldwide.

Cable companies plans to learn foreign broadcasters

A group representing Canada's biggest telecommunications companies has sent a letter to the head of the national regulator asking him to study the growth of new, foreign broadcast players like Netflix Inc. The letter asks CRTC Chair Konrad Von Finckenstein to launch a public consultation process to "determine whether and how such non-Canadian companies should support Canadian cultural programming."

Tuesday on Twitter, Industry Minister Tony Clement said that regulating Netflix would be "offside" with the Tory government's directive to encourage more choice and competition. Netflix first shook up the DVD rental and cable business in Canada last September when it began streaming unlimited movies and TV shows for a flat rate of $7.99 per month. Unlike traditional cable companies, the company is not bound by the CRTC to help fund Canadian programming.

The letter is signed by Alain Gourd, head of the Over-The-Top Services Working Group, which is made up of roughly 35 industry executives including ones at Astral Media Inc. and Rogers Communications Corp.