<keyword id="6419840" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Azim-Premji">Azim Premji</keyword> (69), who donated Rs 12,316 crore between April 2013 and October 2014, has topped the list of philanthropists in India. Anil Agarwal of Vedanta Resources stood distant second, donating Rs 1,796 crore. Premji’s donation is about six times more than that of Anil. 
 According to the list, which was compiled by Shanghai-based <keyword id="770462" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="HuRun-Research-Institute">Hurun Research Institute</keyword> (HRI), 50 people donated at least Rs 10 crore during this period. <keyword id="44903" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Shiv-Nadar">Shiv Nadar</keyword>, Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani were ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively. 
 
Premji had topped the list even last times. As per HRI’s 'India rich list' issued in October 2014, Premji stood at fourth position in terms of personal wealth. He had Rs 86,100 crore at that time. 
 
Most of the Indian philanthropists preferred to donate in the field of education, which accounted for about 80% of the total donations. 
 
Hurun Research “includes cash and cash equivalents pledged with legally binding commitments for the period and includes significant donations ($16.7 million) up to the date of publication. It included donations made by companies in which an individual had a significant share, by applying the percentage the individual has of the company on the donations.” 
 "The list is a good representation of responsible entrepreneurship in India. It's interesting to note that many entrepreneurs in India consider religious donations as <keyword id="6495681" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Philanthropy">philanthropy</keyword>. In this context, we would have missed many more in India." said Anas Rahman Junaid, publisher-at-large of Hurun Report India, which is the Indian wing of the Shanghai-based institute.

Premji Maintains Number One Position In Philanthropy

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=HCL+">HCL </a>founder <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Shiv+Nadar+">Shiv Nadar </a>might join hands with tech industry veteran <keyword id="146247" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sanjay-Kalra">Sanjay Kalra</keyword> to create a $500-milllion fund in order to acquire some matured healthcare firms in the US. The partnership might also invest in start-ups with disruptive solutions. 
 
For the first time, Nadar, a 70-year-old Indian industrialist and philanthropist, has allocated his wealth towards private investment in the technology industry. 
 An Economic Times report has revealed that Kalra, a former top executive at <keyword id="28126" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="HCL">HCL</keyword> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Tech+Mahindra">Tech Mahindra</a>, said that they have already started discussions with potential targets in the US. 
 "We are a group of operational executives with capital looking for buy-outs, carve-outs in the healthcare technology space in the US," Kalra, who is also the chairman of newly-set up <keyword id="44903" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Shiv-Nadar">Shiv Nadar</keyword> &amp; Sanjay Kalra Associates (SNSK), said in an interview. 
 
This year, the overall healthcare spend in the US is estimated to hit $3.207 trillion. As per the CMS, with a population of 320 million, healthcare spending, for the first time ever, will be $10,000 per person. 
 
"With all new changes in regulations, etc., suddenly a fresh industry is emerging. New IPs and software platforms are going to play a key role in this transformation," said Kalra. 
 
Kalra also ensured that he along with Nadar will back the companies on the fund’s exit strategy in the longer run. "With just the two of us committed to the fund, this is patient capital not driven by the typical end of the fund cycles," he said. 
 
Both the industrialists are attempting to tap the lucrative healthcare market in the US, which is going through a massive shift using newer technologies such as big data, analytics and more intelligent software platforms. 
 Image: thinkstock

Shiv Nadar, Sanjay Kalra to buy US healthcare technology firms

<keyword id="6495681" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Philanthropy">Philanthropy</keyword> is a word that has different connotations. In the west, it may mean giving away a portion of your earnings, or parting with your fortune for a cause you believe in. Like establishing <keyword id="57946" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ford-Foundation">Ford Foundation</keyword>, or like Bill and <keyword id="131379" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Melinda-Gates">Melinda Gates</keyword> Foundation. But in India, the word strikes a different chord. 
 
Because a country that has had feudal followed by socialist-leaning measures to hold forth the pillar of democracy in the past few decades, philanthropy was restricted to money alone. It was about feeding the poor, irrespective of caste and even within the confines of caste that existed. 
 
A double-edged sword hung heavy and strong there. Today, after having brought in some heavy changes in the social thread of the society, philanthropy has also come to be known as a gesture of sharing your earnings with the poor. 
 No prizes for guessing who tops the list. The man has been a silent doer and a game changer in the Indian IT industry. Staying afar from the limelight of the media, <keyword id="6419840" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Azim-Premji">Azim Premji</keyword> is a man who has his heart set in the right place. 
 Premji has not only been ‘giving away’ to causes, he has also been working with governments addressing capacity building issues within the education system at grassroots level. It is the same way in which <keyword id="6358599" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sunil-Mittal">Sunil Mittal</keyword> of <keyword id="117954" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bharti-Enterprises">Bharti Enterprises</keyword> is working through schools in North India. 
This, the experts’ term as catalytic philanthropy. They are still minnows in their abilities to form game-changing and impactful public-private-partnerships across the spectrum to usher in a major change in the spectrum they are working on. 
 
Call it Corporate Social Responsibility or the act of giving back to the society, or sharing the fortune with those less fortunate – it all wraps in the same term. That would be philanthropy. Indians may never give like the Dutch or Americans who have formed a habit of setting aside a bit of their salary, no matter how big or small the family is or the job is. You may never see a poor man give money in India. But you will certainly see acts of kindness where establishments take care of street urchins feeding them nutritious meals or provide them with blankets when they sleep on pavements. 
 
Life is cheap in India, and livelihood is costlier. Space constraints may always stand before people to create structures that can shelter all the homeless or provide food for all the hungry and educate all the illiterates. This would be some kind of a gesture where temples open doors to everyone providing them with basic meals. There are even religious institutions which offer food round the clock for those who come at their doorstep. 
 
In smaller towns, there are communities and heads of those groups who will donate land, or money generously to build a temple or a school without making a hue or cry about having lost out on economic benefits. 
 
Companies on the other hand, do make a big deal about Corporate Social Responsibility. There are some companies that would even make a publicity drive out of their CSR initiatives and tie it to their annual appraisal. All that glitters isn’t ever gold, don’t we know by now. 
 
When you consider the top ten philanthropists in India, they are never the names who are seen constantly in the media talking about their ‘giving’ attitude or even bragging how much they are associated with causes. They simply give and continue to do so, come rain or sunshine. 
The Tatas, The Mazumdars, Nadars and Mittals are those forces that have their head firmly on their shoulders while the rest of India wonder about their next corporate move that would create more wealth for the country. 
 
When one considers the charity giving percentage in India among other nations, a study revealed India gave much more than the other ‘developing’ countries. It was on the forefront in that category. But when it came to developed nations, India was exactly where it was expected—much below the list. The perennial question is: whether India will ever be able to give as much as US and UK? Only time will tell.

The Art Of Giving: India Has Two-pronged Approach To Philanthropy

“The first few weeks of life after retirement have been wonderfully pleasant...As days go by, I will begin to focus my attention on specific areas where value can be added to enhance the quality of life of the rural citizens. I hope this will be greatly engrossing activity and one which hopefully I would enjoy.” This is an excerpt from the letter (dated January 26, 2013) that <keyword id="2906767" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ratan-Novel-Tata">Ratan Novel Tata</keyword> wrote after his retirement from the post of Chairman of <keyword id="6355725" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tata-Group">Tata Group</keyword> in 2012. 
 The quote mentioned above clearly reflects <keyword id="6360722" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="ratan-tata">Ratan Tata</keyword>’s humane side and also depicts how this man simply wants to give it back to the society by devoting his time, and not just money, for the cause. And guess who is on his top priority list? It’s the rural citizens of India. 
 But are you aware, how he aims to achieve his dreams? By spending quality time in his ‘<keyword id="2289077" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="happy-space">Happy Space</keyword>’. 
 
Happy Space: Where talent is nurtured and ideas are born 
Rata Tata’s ‘Happy Space’ is nothing but his own zone wherein he spends time with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students, meets young entrepreneurs and of course, spends some time taking care of Tata Trust’s initiatives. 
 
After stepping down as chairman of Tata Sons in 2012, Ratan Tata had also expressed his wish to focus on initiatives like rural development, water conservation and child nutrition. “My most visible goal is to do something in nutrition to children in India, and pregnant mothers. Because that would change the mental and physical health of our population in years to come,” he had said. 
 
His other plans include low-cost housing, sustainable energy, waste management and clean water for Indian citizens, and here is what he has done for these causes so far. 
 
· Nutrition: He had demanded full subsidy on food for the under privileged sections of the society. He had also said that the country was going to suffer if children's very existence was condemned because of malnutrition. 
· Clean water: Clean drinking water is another essential area which drew Tata’s attention and as part of his social responsibility, a rice husk ash-based water filter was developed at the Pune-based Tata Research Development and Design Centre. 
· Waste Management: XPRIZE, the global leader in incentivized prize competition, entered Indian market in collaboration with Ratan Tata and other philanthropists. 
 
Ratan Tata’s formula for success 
The personality of Ratan Tata projects a true entrepreneur and also gives us an insight about the person, who is willing to work all his life for the betterment of society. What makes the claim even stronger is the fact that he not just talks about social betterment but actually implements initiatives to make a difference. In addition, those bitten by the entrepreneurial bug can also take lessons from Ratan Tata’s life; provided they pick up the following characteristics of the man: 
 
1. Be a visionary: No one can deny Ratan Tata is a visionary, and that is precisely what one needs to succeed—a vision to lead. 
2. Risk-taker: Ratan Tata broke the 144-year-old practice and announced Cyrus Mistry as his successor, someone from outside the immediate Tata family. Who else could have taken such a risk? 
3. Authenticity: The secret behind every successful leader’s achievement is his authenticity; the knack to listen to one’s own voice. 
4. Be a humble listener: Those who had the opportunity of working with the man always say he is a very good listener and makes everyone comfortable in his presence. 
5. Create your own ‘happy space’: Of all the skills you could be bestowed with, one’s own happy space is the most important part. Identify that what makes you feel happy and what drives you to act. 
 
No wonder, Ashok Ganguly, former Hindustan Unilever chairman, describes Ratan Tata as a ‘Karma Yogi’ and feels that he might be growing old in times but has a young heart. And what we think is that he is the man with a golden heart! Wouldn’t you agree?

Know what’s keeping Ratan Tata busy and happy post retirement

In 2006, two freshmen from IIT-Delhi gathered enough spunk to knock at the door of Kalyanaraman Srinivasan, Amazon’s <keyword id="2463621" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="global-technology-head">global technology head</keyword> for retail, who was in India to set up a development center at Chennai and a regular at the Bangalore office of the global ecommerce biggie. The duo requested fifteen minutes of ‘we-time’ as they bubbled over a few ideas they considered path-breaking. They wanted to know which one they should focus on. “I took 1.5 seconds and said if they really wanted to be entrepreneurs, they must replicate Amazon in India and be patient about it,” says Srinivasan, in a southern accent cradling a Midwestern twang. The duo turned out to be Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal who founded Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart the very next year, recently raising a billion dollars from investors to take on Amazon’s Indian foray. 
 Srinivasan’s advice bode well for the youngsters and made them very rich indeed but the operative word was “patient”. Despite zero signs of profitability in the ecommerce eddies, Srinivasan remains positive. After all, more than 20% of the GDP of the world comes from emerging markets with barely 3% of capital investment therein. In other words, there are not many tradable liquid securities out here, he reasons, adding that companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal and <keyword id="761157" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infibeam">Infibeam</keyword>, where he has personally invested, will raise the tide. 
 
“The rising tide will raise all the boats first and every company will get irrational valuations but those who focus on customer experience in the long term, will stay there and go higher, and those who don’t, will fall off,” says Srinivasan. As a precursor, he points to the dotcom boom in the US in 1999-2000. “Trillions of dollars went into valuations there but the customer experience only got better…so the irrationality of valuations is relative,” he points out, observing the Indian ecommerce market potential to be in the $100-200 range and with only $6 billion active market, excluding train and flight tickets, Flipkart’s valuation of $5 billion makes perfect sense. 
 Today, the 44-year-old Kalyanaraman Srinivasan is Chief Operating Officer, <keyword id="384914" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Groupon">Groupon</keyword>, a portmanteau for group coupon, and at one time, the fastest growing company in the world that grew from $1 million in seed money to $1 billion in two years. On a whistlestop tour covering Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and India, he met up with CD in the Delhi office of Groupon, housed in a rundown commercial complex in the southern part of the capital city. That’s where, over cuppa and crackers, he deconstructs the journey of a 15-year-old from poverty to power, politics at the workplace, lessons from Sam Walton, problem-solving from Amazon to startups, and how somewhere in between, he came to be known as Kal Raman. 
 
Education is salvation 
 
Born and raised in Mannarkoil in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, down south of Chennai, Raman’s father, a tehsildar, passed away when he was all of 15. The family of four siblings struggled through the odds on his mother’s monthly pension of Rs 420. She was, however, uncompromising on her children’s education. That explains how liberally Raman uses this phrase—“Education is salvation.” 
 
After high school, Raman got through both medical and engineering college. While the medical college stood in his district, he opted for engineering in Chennai where he knew nobody. “I wanted to see how far I can fly,” he reminisces. Till today, Raman has a knack of making the tougher choice. It’s as if he’s conditioned that way. “The longer it takes to get something, the longer it stays with you….most of the things that look easy, are not good in the long term,” he says. 
 
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Not quite okay, Tata 
 
Raman’s first job was in Mumbai with Tata Consulting Engineers, where he landed up in slippers on his first day at work, sending his boss into a fit of rage. Upon hearing his story, he was not only given money to buy shoes but also fixed up at his friend’s Mumbai residence. Within a month, his boss sent him to Bangalore where he computerized the entire office administration. Thus started Raman’s steady rise in the world of information technology, and he did a lot of learning on his own, including ‘C’ programming. Just as he was about to get confirmed, he gave in his resignation since he signed up with TCS at Chennai. As a code jock, he ended up in Edinburgh servicing the Scottish Equitable Insurance Company and that’s where the first signs of friction with his boss became evident. 
 
As Raman deep-dove into the world of insurance, he figured the mathematical model of the company was completely flawed—if the company had more than 15% reimbursement, the resultant number would be a big negative, while the marketing documents of the company said that people would get 23% redemption. He tried explaining it to his boss but got cold shouldered. 
 
Raman would come in late and work well into the night. Being the last to leave, he was noticed by someone by the name Chris, who asked him why he stayed up so late despite being a programmer from an outsourced company. Upon being told of a questionable business model, Chris got curious and stayed up with Raman till 2 am one morning. A few days later, as Raman came in to work, his boss was pacing up anddown the room and glanced at him menacingly. He said that the European general manager of TCS had been called by the company and they were all going to see the management and that it concerned him. “If I were you, I would have packed my bags for India,” the boss said. Eventually, the trio entered a room with suits and at the head of the table, Chris sat in bespoke CEO attire. Before a word was uttered, Raman’s boss started making excuses and virtually disowned him, labeling him as a rotten apple in the TCS pantheon of “good and loyal workers”. That’s when Chris got up and silenced him, explaining why TCS needed to hire more people like Raman. “What my CPO and CIO couldn’t solve, a 22-yearold has done, and I thought it to be pertinent to acknowledge it in front of his bosses,” he said. 
 
The American Dream 
 For Raman, there was no looking back. With the help of Chris, he applied to companies in the US and got through <keyword id="46675" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Wal-Mart">Wal-Mart</keyword>, where he rose to become the giant retailer’s technology director within a year. In fact, he admittedly got promoted 18 times that year from the lowest employee to the top rung, catching the eye of Wal-Mart promoters Sam and Rob Walton. He also picked up the invaluable lessons of long-term planning and customer-centricity from Sam Walton, the father of modern retail. That’s where Raman learnt business execution under his mentor, Doyle Graham, who again passed away at 45, exactly the age his father had died. Orphaned twice, Raman had no will to forge on. He hung around for six months before signing up with Blockbuster, the biggest DVD rental company then and as he predicted its doom, which eventually paved the way for newbies like Netflix, he started out afresh as CEO of drugstore.com. At Drugstore, he had an enviable board of directors, which included among others, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Bill Gates’ wife and philanthropist Melissa Gates, Starbucks’ Howard Schultz and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. 
 
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He ran Drugstore through the tumultuous 9/11 years as corporate America took a beating and share prices tumbled. When his recovery plan was rejected by the board, Raman knew it was time. However, Bezos sought him out and wanted him to go to Seattle to take a shot at some of the problems at Amazon. Raman, of course, chose the toughest one to crack—the non-media businesses were growing faster than media and Amazon was losing $200 million worth of free cash flow back then. He identified the problem and automated the entire retail infrastructure to solve it at one go. At that juncture, there were 6,000 people working at Amazon and he had 3,000 under him. Mission accomplished, Raman moved on to start his own venture Global Scholar with venture capitalist Michael Milken until selling out in 2010 and signing up as COO of Groupon in May 2012. “Now I joined Groupon when everyone wrote the company off and I love being the underdog,” he says. 
 
Galvanizing Groupon 
 
In 2012, Groupon’s international business was crumbling and it was left to Raman to steady the ship. Today, along with the domestic US business, the international division is in the black. “We are building a category, we are not building a company…. what Groupon is now, Amazon was in 2001,” he says. 
 
As he pumps in adrenaline to the business, Raman has a roadmap. He’s applying all that he learnt at Wal-Mart, keeping the merchant community engaged and customers happy by offering the lowest prices and an efficient delivery mechanism. Will he be able to pull it off? “We’re more worried about the long term and so we’re trying to get more efficient by passing off the savings to our merchants and customers so that they become more loyal to Groupon and check our website first before they go for any other transactions….we have about 1,600 people in technology to do that out of 12,000 worldwide,” he says. At $2.5 billion revenue and with zero debt, Raman’s optimism is well-founded. And while valuations like $8 billion scorch the terrace, he maintains a straight face and waits for the tide to raise the boats. What then, after he steers Groupon to the safe shores of supra-growth and profitability? “I’ll do something very big in education in India, with or without Groupon,” he says.

You Searched For "top indian philanthropists" and got 5 results

Premji Maintains Number One Position In Philanthropy

BI India Bureau

Shiv Nadar, Sanjay Kalra to buy US healthcare technology firms

BI India Bureau

The Art Of Giving: India Has Two-pronged Approach To Philanthropy

Preetam Kaushik

Know what’s keeping Ratan Tata busy and happy post retirement

Roohi Gupta

Meet Kal Raman, Groupon COO & Mentor To Flipkart’s Bansals

Moinak Mitra