Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The giving's not easy here

The giving's not easy here: "ndian businessman Ratan Tata has made a $50 million donation to Harvard Business School, one of the largest individual endowments the US school has ever received. Earlier, Mr Tata, through a family trust, had donated $50 million to his alma mater, Cornell University. In between, Anand Mahindra donated $10 million for a humanities centre at Harvard. It is praiseworthy that India's richest corporate chieftains are endowing educational institutions with such generosity. Whether they give in India or overseas is a moot point, giving is a personal decision and rightly giving is not seen as being constrained by borders. India is experiencing a nascent culture of corporate philanthropy. Several big business houses were synonymous with corporate philanthropy at one time. But during the country's socialist heyday, this culture died out, not least because of a sense that social welfare was the monopoly of the state."

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