Alumni open purse to help IIT-Delhi build research schools

The highly successful alumni of Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) have pumped in millions of dollars to the alma mater since it was established in 1961, helping the institute look beyond government funding for several ambitious research projects.

Currently, two complexes are being built in IIT-Delhi with 100 per cent alumni funding and the foundation for another one was laid recently to boost the institute’s research prospects. The first is Amarnath and Shashi Khosla School of Information Technology, named after parents of IIT-Delhi alumnus and US-based venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.

Khosla, a BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT-Delhi, co-founded Sun Microsystems along with his Stanford classmates in 1982. Dean of Alumni Affairs Ambuj Sagar said Khosla has provided $5 million for construction of the building and for research work to be taken up there. “The complex will be ready in the next six months,” Dean of Infrastructure Ashok Gupta said. It will be for inter-disciplinary, goal-oriented research, and also serve as an innovation centre for post-graduate education in information technology.

Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, funded by alumnus Anurag Dikshit through the UK-based Kusuma Trust, named after his mother, is another project coming up on the campus. The trust has said to have contributed more than £5 million to build the school. Dean of Infrastructure Gupta said Rs. 100 million has already been released for the building, while the rest would be utilised for setting up research laboratories within the facility. The project mission is to promote research by “interfacing modern biology with applied engineering sciences to address problems affecting human health and welfare, and training scholars to be the next generation scientists”.

Patanjali Keswani, Managing Director of Lemon Tree Hotels and an IIT-Delhi alumnus, recently announced Rs. 200 million for GH Keswani Research Centre at the institute. Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal laid the foundation of the project, which will be built in an area of approximately 130,000 square feet. It will reserved for research facilities for students.

IIT-Delhi has so far produced over 30,000 engineers, technologists, scientists, managers and entrepreneurs. Over the years, this rich roll-call has helped the institute financially and logistically take up several alumni-funded projects.

Source: The Indian Express, September 23, 2012

Xander Group founder Siddharth Yog gifts $11 million to Harvard Business School

On the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011 at 11:11 a.m., Siddharth Yog gifted $11 million as ‘guru dakshina’ to his professor Arthur I. Segel at the Harvard Business School, his alma mater. He added a dollar to that amount as ‘shagun’, or a token for good luck. The 38-year-old founder of Xander Group Inc., a global investment company focused on emerging markets that manages over $2 billion of equity capital, follows in the footsteps of prominent Harvard alumni who have given back to the business school that played a major role in moulding them into successful business people.

Other Indians to figure on that list include Anand Mahindra, Ratan Tata and Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy. In early October 2010, the Vice-Chairman & Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra had given $10 million to support Harvard’s Humanities Center; days later, the Tata Group donated $50 million to fund a campus building; and earlier in the same year, the Murthy family gifted $5.2 million to publish ‘The Murthy Classical Library of India’.

Yog’s gift has its distinctive elements. For one, it figures amongst the single-largest personal gifts an Indian has made to Harvard University. For another, it follows the ‘shishya-guru parampara’, or the age-old Indian disciple-teacher tradition. “I can never thank Arthur enough for what he has taught me. The gift is to the institute and specifically to Arthur for bringing about a life-changing experience (in me),” said the class of 2004 alumnus in an interaction with this writer during a recent visit to New Delhi to be part of a lunch hosted by Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust.

On his 30th trip to India in seven years, the guru, a co-founder and co-owner (between 1982 and 2001) of a private equity real estate development and investment advisory company, is a tad embarrassed by the ‘guru dakshina’. “Teaching is such a joy… but the idea of a gift in my name is preposterous. It is very nice, but unnecessary,” says Segel with a grin. Yog convinced the good professor to accept the offering by narrating the story of Eklavya from Mahabharata, who cut off his thumb and offered it as dakshina to his guru Dronacharya.

So why is this maverick – who now rubs shoulders with the likes of Tata, Mahindra, Murthy as well as western donors such as David Rockefeller – so indebted to Harvard University? Well, it’s thanks to the university, and to Segel, that Yog turned entrepreneur. Before that, since 1993, Yog was involved in global real estate and infrastructure. Between 1999 and 2002, Yog was based in Singapore and Hong Kong as founder-director of CB Richard Ellis’ (CBRE’s) Asia-Pacific strategic consulting practice. Prior to that, from 1994 to 1998, he helped set up CBRE’s India operations and led the consulting, valuation and research groups. He has also worked at Bain & Company in New York, Deutsche Bank Real Estate Investment Management GmbH in Frankfurt, and Feedback Ventures in New Delhi. But after nine years of working, Yog found himself asking the quintessential mid-career question: where do I go from here? Answer: the Harvard Business School, where he landed in 2002.

Segel recalls his first meeting with his shishya when Yog walked into his office at Harvard; Yog knew only real estate, and Segel taught the subject. “He was among the top students of his 900-strong batch,” the professor recalls. Yog went on to write a case with Segel on real estate major Eldeco; Segel still teaches it. Like most regular MBA grads, whose next destination is a coveted job in the financial services industry, Yog was set to start JPMorgan Chase’s private equity business in the Asia-Pacific after graduating in 2004. “But, as they say, life happens,” recalls Yog.

In New Delhi to get his visa stamped, none other than Segel prodded Yog to start a business of his own. Yog, with Segel and a clutch of investors in tow, duly founded Xander Group Inc. The private equity business of the group has investments from Lord Rothschild’s family, RIT Cap Partners, The Getty Family Trusts, and of course Segel and Yog, who is currently based in London. Over the past seven years, Xander Group has grown to 75-plus employees with offices in New Delhi, Singapore, London, Boston, Mauritius, Bangalore and Mumbai, among other outposts. The focus is primarily on companies and assets in real estate, retail, entertainment, infrastructure and hospitality.

Yog says the exposure to Lord Rothschild’s philanthropy played a big part in his decision to give back to Harvard. “It was a desire to start early. As Steve Jobs said: stay hungry, stay foolish. I did that and I am hungry and foolish again.” The gift of $11 million spans multiple Harvard schools and focuses on innovative science, educational access, public service and academic-public policy collaborations. The financial aid and fellowships have an India and emerging market focus, says Yog.

To be sure, India is top of mind for Yog. “The company is named after Alexander the Great, who first tried to marry East and West. The idea is to create an ecosystem between the East and the West and to tie back the opportunities in India specifically along with other emerging markets.”

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), January 28, 2012

IIMs to set up centres to help raise funds

The elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) on Friday decided to set up development centres to be run by experts and independent professionals to raise funds from alumni networks and philanthropists. These professionals will work with the two groups to raise funds. At the IIM directors’ meet in Delhi, which was also attended by human resources development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal​, the London Business School (LBS) was invited to present a case study on how it raises funds.

“The older IIMs can set up centres with an exclusive aim of fostering relationships and raising funds and endowments. The IIMs meet discussed this and (they) are quite positive about the prospect,” said a senior MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) official requesting not to be named as “this is an internal meeting of the IIMs”. The above official said the newer IIMs may opt for setting up a single platform as they don’t have an alumni network like the older ones. “LBS could be the role model for the entire project.”

As Mint reported on Friday, the meeting also took into account a government committee report on the issue which suggested that the IIMs follow a model that identifies prospective fund givers, solicits money from them and keeps them informed about how it is being used.

“Fund-rasing is a long process and we discussed why we have not been able to do it successfully,” IIM-Raipur Director B.S. Sahay said. He said two senior LBS officials present at the meeting spoke about their experience.“LBS is a contemporary B-School to some of our older IIMs, and if they can do it, why cannot we,” Sahay said. The people involved here are professionals and have experience of raising endowments, he added. He said several Indian industrialists have donated generously to foreign B-Schools.

Ratan Tata donated $50 million to Harvard Business School​ (HBS) in 2010. The “gift, the largest from an international donor in the school’s history, will fund a new academic and residential building on the HBS campus in Boston,” the school website says. In the same year, Mahindra and Mahindra’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Anand Mahindra donated $10 million in honour of his mother to Harvard University’s Humanities Centre. The Aditya Birla India Centre at LBS was founded by Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group.

A detailed road map will be prepared by IIMs by Saturday when the meet concludes, Sahay said. Since, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have managed to accumulate significant donations over the years, some of the directors of the elite engineering schools were also present at the meet.

Source: Mint, January 14, 2012

Plan panel asks PSUs to set up education hubs under CSR

In a move to boost higher education in the country, the Planning Commission has mooted the idea of public sector units (PSUs) setting up higher education hubs as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR). The move will help the government in achieving its target of increasing the gross enrollment ratio (GER) to 20% by 2017 and 25% by 2022.

“We are exploring the idea and PSUs are keen to support such activities of the government. They are on board as they recognise that investing in higher education is not only CSR but also for their future,” said a Planning Commission official. PSUs spend almost Rs. 1,400 crore (Rs. 14 billion) as part of their CSR.

As per the commission, health and education received less than projected expenditure in the 11th Five Year Plan and hence, allocations for these sectors will have to be increased in the 12th Plan. “Health, education and skill development together in the Centre’s plan will have to be raised by at least 1.2 percentage point of GDP… Use of PPP must be encouraged,” it says.

In the 12th Plan period, the commission is targeting an additional enrollment of 10 million in higher education, equivalent to 3 million additional seats for each age cohort entering the higher education system. This would significantly increase the GER bringing it broadly in line with the global average.

About 18% of all government education spending or about 1.12% of GDP is spent on higher education today. According to the commission, this should be raised to 25% and 1.5% respectively. An increase of 0.38% of GDP means an additional allocation of about Rs. 25,000 crore (Rs. 250 billion) to higher education for the centre and the states taken together. “It is tough to set up an education hub and modalities related to the revenue model, returns on investment and land are to be worked out,” the Planning Commission official added.

However, the industry is apprehensive of this move and wants PSUs to budget this exercise in their human resource (HR) grants for better outcomes and accountability. “If the programme becomes a part of CSR, then it will only be a one-time aid. We want PSUs to include it in their HR policy so that they become stakeholders and are more involved,” said a CII official who is deliberating the matter with the government. The capital cost of setting up an institute is Rs. 50 crore (Rs. 500 million) which is the initial cost but the operational cost including salaries is greater.

Incidentally, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is unaware of this idea though it supports the setting up of more institutes. “We welcome any move to increase GER but creating an ecosystem for education involves investment and land,” said the ministry official.

Source: The Financial Express, January 5, 2012

Presidency College Kolkata to tap corporate houses

Kolkata’s Presidency College, now University, plans to tap big corporate houses and private funds to make it one of Asia’s best graduate studies institute. “We want to tap top corporate houses who have philanthropic exposure to higher education. However, donation will be accepted without any strings attached. We are building a database of prospective donors,” said Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of History at Harvard University.

Prof. Bose, appointed recently by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee as Chairman of the Presidency University mentor group to revive the fortunes of this institution, is a grand-nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. In an hour long freewheeling interview with ET in Netaji’s ancestral home, Bose’s eyes lit up as he wondered aloud on his dream of taking his alma mater, Presidency, to the world stage. “And to do that, we need big funds,” said Bose. He cited the example of Harvard itself, which has endowments to the tune of $27 billion!

Bose has set a deadline of 2017-18 to make Presidency a world famous institution, when it will complete 200 years. He has formed an eight member mentor group comprising academics and administrators to come up with the turnaround plan, and will also take the help of fellow alumni and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. The mentor group will also look at possibilities to seek funds from the Centre and to make Presidency a part of the 14 world-class universities which the union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is planning to build across the country.

“The infrastructure at Presidency University is in dire straits. We have to look at various sources of funding to upgrade infrastructure since the West Bengal government’s fiscal health may not permit it to provide all the funds the institution would require to turn its fortunes,” said Bose. The first meeting of the mentor group is scheduled to take place around July 22-23, with the group suggesting turnaround measures for the next two years.

The mentor group will also evaluate possibilities to turn Presidency into a central university from a state one. “Central university status will enable it to tap central funds. It will also help us increase the salary of the teachers to attract better faculty, since the pay scale in central university is much more than a state university,” said Bose. Be that as it may, Bose’s email inbox is flooded with more than 1,000 job applications from teachers across the world. There’s a lot of enthusiasm. “But we need to provide the faculty an enabling environment,” he says.

Also on the cards, are plans to tie up with top universities in Japan, China and the Southeast Asia for faculty and student exchange. At the same time, the mentor group wants Presidency to start inter-disciplinary studies like the American universities. Bose wants to follow the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) model whereby the institution will focus on its core areas as centres of excellence, but also open up newer disciplines.

“Presidency will not be another IIT or IIM. It will continue its focus on liberal arts and science. But we want to bring newer subjects like applied science and IT which will ensure student placements. Plus, one full semester will dedicated for internship. We want to make Presidency an institute so that students choose to come here and not the IITs,” said Bose. Presidency in the last few years has been facing a lot of criticism about its falling standards due to alleged politics in teacher recruitment and frequent student unrest led by political parties.

Bose admits of “the steep decline in academic standards and infrastructure over the last 30 years when the institution lost its talented faculty”, but he sincerely hopes student politics will not hamper the turnaround process. “Student union is there in most of the top academic institutions, but those are not linked to party politics. Interest in politics is healthy but students should develop a new outlook when some real new things are going to take place,” he says. “For instance, the institution needs to raise academic fees but we will ensure that there are sufficient financial aid and scholarship for meritorious students who cannot afford such fees. Similarly, the chief minister has promised me there will be no political interference,” says Bose.

Originally called Hindu College that cradled the Bengal renaissance in the 19th century, Presidency boasts of thousands of noted alumni. This includes Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rajendra Prasad, Jyoti Basu, B.C. Roy, R.P. Goenka, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose and Satyajit Ray.

Bose is confident Presidency will again produce and expand its famous alumni network. “We are confident Presidency will not get burnt out,” says Bose, who has started to burn midnight oil to bring back this 194-years-old goliath institution to its pink of health.

Source: The Economic Times, July 6, 2011

>Azim Premji pledges Rs. 100 billion for schools project

>Wipro’s Azim Premji is set to give some competition to two of the world’s most richest and most active philanthropists – Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. The Azim Premji Foundation will spend Rs. 10,000 crore (Rs. 100 billion) for setting up schools and educational institutes across the country, the foundation’s CEO, Dilip Ranjekar, announced in Latur on Wednesday.

He said that two model schools would be built in each district, including Latur. “We aim to churn out good teachers, who will nurture best students in the country. We are investing our money in the field of education as the present system focuses on only marks and not ability of students,” he said, adding that merit would be the sole criteria for admissions to institutes built by the foundation.

Ranjekar said that Buffett and Gates had pledged a staggering amount of money for the improvement of the education sector worldwide, and the Azim Premji Foundation would seek to do the same. Some of the institutes that the organisation plans to set up will offer post-graduate courses, including management.

While discussing the needs of an efficient educational system, Ranjekar pointed out the diminishing gaps between two generations. “Time is changing so fast that the generation gap, which was once considered a good 30 years, is now just three years. If we don’t understand the needs of today’s youth, we will face huge problems in future,” he said. He also stressed on the urgency to understand the interaction among the youth.

Ranjekar feels “injustice, inequality and discordance” are the three major issues the world faces. He said that only 1 per cent of the world’s population had 40 per cent of the wealth. “In our country, we get shoes in an AC showroom and vegetables on roadsides near drains,” he said, adding that the youth was indifferent and self-centered.

He revealed that in India, there are 1.3 million schools, 250 million students and 6 million teachers. “One teacher has to teach many subjects, which dissolves the interest of the students as well as the teacher. We need to build a system that will churn out teachers,” he said.

Last year, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett announced a campaign to get other American billionaires to give at least 50 per cent of their wealth to charity. More than 50 Americans, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, have signed up for the campaign, called ‘The Giving Pledge’.

Gates and Buffett — with an estimated net worth of US$ 56 billion and $ 50 billion, respectively — have extended the initiative to India and China. Last month, the two met Indian industrialists and tycoons and urged them to take the pledge. Gates has been active in philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2006, Buffett announced that he would spend 99 per cent of his wealth on philanthropy.

Source: The Economic Times (Online Edition), April 28, 2011

Tatas gift US$ 50 million to Harvard Business School

India’s Tata Group has announced a US$ 50 million (Rs. 2.2 billion) gift to Harvard Business School (HBS), the largest donation from an international donor in the school’s history. Besides cementing an already significant relationship between India and the world’s premier business school, the grant also sends out a strong message of Indian academic and economic involvement in the U.S. ahead of the visit to India of President Obama, who is also a Harvard (law school) alumnus.

The gift, disclosed in Boston on Thursday by Chairman Ratan Tata, will fund a new academic and residential building on the HBS campus for participants in the School’s broad portfolio of Executive Education programs. The School hopes to break ground for the building, which will be named Tata Hall, next spring.

Incidentally, Ratan Tata attended the School’s Advanced Management Program — one of three comprehensive leadership programs offered by HBS Executive Education — in 1975. He received the School’s highest honor, the Alumni Achievement Award, in 1995. On top of this, Harvard Business School’s current (and 10th) Dean is Rajasthan-born Nitin Nohria.

Clearly, the gift is not without some political undertones, coming on the eve of the visit to India of President Obama, who has lately railed about the flight of American jobs to India. Boston’s Democratic Mayor Thomas Menino, who joined Tata and Dean Nohria for the announcement on the HBS campus, said the Indian company’s generosity would have both a local and global impact. “Mr. Tata’s gift will create jobs right here in Boston, and the executives who study at HBS will go out into the world as ambassadors of our truly world-class city,” he said.

In fact, President Obama himself is expected to stay at the Tata Group’s flagship property, the Taj Hotel, site of the deadly 9/11 terrorist strike by Pakistan, during his visit to Mumbai next month, also as a gesture of solidarity with the Indian group which lost several employees in the attack. Ahead of the presidential visit, Larry Summers, one of his key economic advisors, who is also a past president of Harvard University, is already in Mumbai.

All these factors appeared to have played a role in the big Tata gift, although there has been criticism in some quarters regarding Indian business lavishing grants on American schools that are already wealthy beyond compare. Harvard University has an endowment of over US$ 25 billion, the world’s largest, and HBS’ endowments alone top US$ 2 billion. Last week, India’s Mahindra Group announced a US$ 10 million gift to support Harvard’s Humanities Center.

But the hoary university, which has many distinguished Indian alumni including two cabinet ministers (P. Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal), and several business leaders (Rahul Bajaj, Y.C. Deveshwar besides Tata and Mahindra among them), evidently has a special place in Indian hearts and minds. “The Harvard Business School is the pre-eminent place to be exposed to the world’s best thinking on management and leadership, and we are pleased that this gift will support the School’s educational mission to mold the next generation of global business leaders,” Ratan Tata said, in explaining the gift.

Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria expressed deep appreciation for the Tata Group’s “extraordinary generosity” saying, “This is an historic gift from a renowned organization revered for its significant economic, civic, and philanthropic impact.” Nohria, who is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai, reminded Americans that Tata Group is widely respected for integrity and innovation, not just in India — where it produced both the first indigenous car and the $2,000 Tata Nano automobile — but in a variety of business lines across several continents, from cars to hotels and from tea to information technology.

Tatas own three premier hotel properties in the U.S. in New York (The Pierre), Boston (Ritz) and San Francisco (Campton). Together with its IT operations, its enterprises have created thousands of jobs in recession hit U.S., a fact that is seldom recognized in America.

Source: The Times of India, October 16, 2010

Homi Bhabha hopes Mahindra’s $10 mn to Harvard helps humanities

Indian industrialist Anand Mahindra’s US$ 10 million gift to the Humanities Center at Harvard will help the institute bring humanities into the arena of policy making and enhance collaborations between other fields of knowledge, renowned Indian scholar Homi Bhabha said. Coming from India, the gift also “emphasises the global reach of the humanities,” Bhabha, Director of the Humanities Centre and Harvard’s Anne Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, said.

Anand Mahindra’s gift will enable the Centre “to enhance collaborations between the humanities and other fields of knowledge at Harvard and widen the reach of the humanities nationally and abroad”. The gift would also help Harvard bring the humanities into the arena of policymaking, he said, “where at this point the humanities have only a feeble voice”.

The Centre, said Bhabha, already has reached out to the social and natural sciences. “The humanities never sit still,” said the India-born scholar who has a doctorate in literature from Oxford University. The humanities always busy themselves with the business of the world, and refuse to be contained. Through the 10 million dollar gift, the Humanities Center aims to sponsor more events, support more doctoral and postdoctoral students, help younger colleagues turn dissertations into books, and open up ‘larger circles of collegiality’,” Bhabha added.

The gift itself provides a reminder that India and South Asia have long traditions of accomplishment within the “cosmopolitan realm of the humanities”. “It was never just a region defined by religion — Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity — but even today is a lively home to writers, performers, painters and poets,” Bhabha said. In this age of innovation, “the themes, values, and images” of culture are “continually being translated by different media,” he said. “This is just the kind of issue that the humanities always deal with. The humanities are most perceptive in thinking about complex moments of transition,” he said.

Mahindra’s 10 million dollar gift is “the largest of its kind in the University’s history”. The Harvard alumnus and Mahindra & Mahindra’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director has given the gift in honour of his mother Indira Mahindra. The Centre is now renamed the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard. After studying film at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies in 1973, Mahindra earned an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1981.

Source: The Economic Times, October 6, 2010

Homi Bhabha hopes Mahindra’s $10 mn to Harvard helps humanities

Indian industrialist Anand Mahindra’s US$ 10 million gift to the Humanities Center at Harvard will help the institute bring humanities into the arena of policy making and enhance collaborations between other fields of knowledge, renowned Indian scholar Homi Bhabha said. Coming from India, the gift also “emphasises the global reach of the humanities,” Bhabha, Director of the Humanities Centre and Harvard’s Anne Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, said.

Anand Mahindra’s gift will enable the Centre “to enhance collaborations between the humanities and other fields of knowledge at Harvard and widen the reach of the humanities nationally and abroad”. The gift would also help Harvard bring the humanities into the arena of policymaking, he said, “where at this point the humanities have only a feeble voice”.

The Centre, said Bhabha, already has reached out to the social and natural sciences. “The humanities never sit still,” said the India-born scholar who has a doctorate in literature from Oxford University. The humanities always busy themselves with the business of the world, and refuse to be contained. Through the 10 million dollar gift, the Humanities Center aims to sponsor more events, support more doctoral and postdoctoral students, help younger colleagues turn dissertations into books, and open up ‘larger circles of collegiality’,” Bhabha added.

The gift itself provides a reminder that India and South Asia have long traditions of accomplishment within the “cosmopolitan realm of the humanities”. “It was never just a region defined by religion — Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity — but even today is a lively home to writers, performers, painters and poets,” Bhabha said. In this age of innovation, “the themes, values, and images” of culture are “continually being translated by different media,” he said. “This is just the kind of issue that the humanities always deal with. The humanities are most perceptive in thinking about complex moments of transition,” he said.

Mahindra’s 10 million dollar gift is “the largest of its kind in the University’s history”. The Harvard alumnus and Mahindra & Mahindra’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director has given the gift in honour of his mother Indira Mahindra. The Centre is now renamed the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard. After studying film at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies in 1973, Mahindra earned an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1981.

Source: The Economic Times, October 6, 2010

Anand Mahindra gifts US$ 10 million to alma mater Harvard

In what is being billed as the largest grant to the Humanities Center at Harvard University, Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra, is offering his alma mater US$ 10 million for the study of humanities. The grant, in honour of his mother Indira Mahindra, would see the centre being renamed the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard.

According to sources close to the development, the grant has been catalyzed by the 50-year-old bond that the Mahindra family has with Harvard. Anand’s father, the late Harish Mahindra, earned a Bachelor’s degree at Harvard College in 1946. Anand followed in his footsteps and graduated from Harvard in 1977 with a major in visual and environmental studies. During the’70s, Indian regulations did not permit the provision of foreign exchange for undergraduate studies overseas, and Anand was therefore awarded a full scholarship by Harvard. This is something he has not forgotten.

He then went on to earn an MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1981. Mahindra is reticent in talking about the grant, but is of the view that to address complex problems in an inter-dependent world, it is vital to encourage the cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary exchange of ideas in an international setting. “I am proud to be part of the intellectual legacy of India’s contribution to global thinking across the arts, culture, science and philosophy. I am convinced of the need for incorporating social and humanistic concerns into the core value proposition of business and have sought to do so with tremendous support from my peers and colleagues at work and outside,” he said.

As Mahindra frequently says, the liberal arts experience was a transformational one for him, and he firmly believes that it provided him with a strong foundation for personal and career growth. He has also never forgotten the university’s generosity, and this gift is one way of expressing his gratitude.

The Humanities Center, located at Harvard University, is a site for inter-disciplinary exchanges and is open to the entire academic community and the public, and is a place where discourses on various topics that make up the study of humanities are held.

Source: The Times of India, October 4, 2010