The average rank of India's largest companies slipped from 1,257 to 1,276, and the median company, which happens to be Punjab National Bank in both years, fell 65 places to 1,308.

Yet amid this overall picture lies an elite group of six Indian corporate behemoths that are proving to be on a par with the very best in the world.

In pictures:
Highlights of the world's 2000 largest companies
Global superstar companies

We measure corporate size using four measures--sales, market value, assets and profits--to produce a composite measure of bigness. Try to determine the biggest companies with a single benchmark--say, sales--and you wind up with a lopsided list, one cluttered with retailers, in that case.

Yet size and growth are two attributes that don't come together very often. But for some quick-footed multinationals, they do. So we also search the Forbes Global 2000 to find big companies that aren't just ponderous behemoths but are global superstars in every sense. These fast-growing, adroit and well-managed companies help set the benchmarks for their respective industries. (Full methodology can be found here.)

The six Indian companies that make this elite group of 130: HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer Services, Tata Motors and Wipro.

In pictures:
Global company high performers
The Forbes 40 India

Banks dominant the Indian cadre on our list, accounting for 13 of its 34 companies. That is one more than in 2006. Syndicate Bank is the newcomer at 1,943. The highest-ranked Indian bank, like last year, was State Bank of India, at 326, down 16 places from 2006, and third-largest Indian company to make our rankings.

Above it are two petrochemical companies, Oil & Natural Gas, at 239, up 17 places from the previous year, and Reliance Industries, up 40 places to 258 overall. Both, like India's fourth-largest company, India Oil, at 399 overall, benefited from the country's energy-hungry rapid growth.

Take fast-growing Reliance, the world's leading producer of polyester yarn and fiber and in the top five to 10 global producers of many petrochemical products. It accounts for 8 per cent of India's exports, worth $5 billion. It has worked its way backward up the vertical integration chain from its original textiles business to oil and gas exploration via polyester, plastics, petrochemicals, and oil and gas refining.

In pictures:
The world's billionaires
The world's top venture capitalists

Other big gainers in our rankings were Bharat Heavy Electricals, up 211 places to 1,313, and Bharti Airtel, up 187 places to 1,149. Along with Syndicate Bank, Hindustan Zinc, at 1,700, and Satyam Computer Services, at 1,874, were the newcomers to the list. The two drop-offs were Hindalco Industries and National Aluminium.

While our list reflects the fact that, whatever foreigners may imagine about information-technology outsourcing driving India's economy, it is actually the country's natural resources and capital goods groups.

In that may lie one explanation of why Indian companies are not making more impact on our list of the world's 2,000 largest companies--the gradual pace of reform of a long overprotected and quasi-socialist domestic economy.

While India is evermore welcoming of foreign investment and increasingly engaged with the global economy, its big manufacturing and services companies have still not been exposed fully to the bracing winds of competition--unlike the IT companies that figure so prominently in our list of India's global high performers.