According to the recently published EdelGive-Hurun India Philanthropy List, digital tech tycoon Shiv Nadar, promoter-chairman of HCL Ltd (market valuation: Rs.5.13 trillion) is India’s most generous philanthropist having donated Rs.2,153 crore (Rs.5.9 crore per day) to mainly education charitable causes in 2024. Runner-up Azim Premji, promoter-Chairman of Wipro Ltd with Rs.1,000 crore and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries with Rs.407 crore are distant second and third respectively. 

Curiously although the Nadars’ munificence is centred around education — Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, Shiv Nadar School, Gurgaon and Faridabad and SSN University, Kalavakkam, Tamil Nadu — all unsparingly constructed and furbished model institutions of learning, this champion of education is not above irrational prejudice. For several years your editors have been bombarding letters, emails and other appeals upon Nadar for the tiny favour of signing up his several education institutions as subscribers (Rs.2,500 per annum) of this publication and perhaps confer a few crumbs of his laden table by way of advertising. Alas, without response.

Perhaps busy with donating Rs.5.9 crore per day, Nadar is unaware that Nadar institution academics routinely rain press releases, essays and interview requests upon this struggling publication, some of which have been published free of charge. Moreover, at the recent EW India School Ranking Awards staged in Delhi, Col. Karunakaran — Nadar’s trusted lieutenant/emissary — was present to receive awards and free-of-charge five-star hospitality on behalf of Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram ranked among the Top 5 co-ed schools countrywide.

According to the Hurun India list this IT tycoon is brimming over with charitable impulses. Yet our experience is quite the contrary.