It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it, said Albert Einstein. And these words echo TV Mohandas Pai’s idea of philanthropy.
“When I was growing up, we never had surplus money to give away,” says Pai, 56, chairman, Manipal Global Education Services, who describes himself first and foremost as an “ordinary person” with a “simple middle-class upbringing”. His sense of responsibility has manifested itself through his various initiatives, the most important being the mid-day meal programme for schoolchildren run by the Bangalore-based not-for-profit organisation Akshaya Patra Foundation. Started in 2000, the foundation comprises volunteers from Iskcon Bangalore, and more than 50 public and private sector companies; it feeds 1.4 million schoolchildren every day across 10,800 government schools in 11 states.
Pai makes substantial personal contributions to Akshaya Patra and was instrumental in pushing senior executives at Infosys to support the programme through funding and time. At present, trustees include V Balakrishnan, former board member and CFO, Infosys, Raj Kondur, founder and CEO, Kondur Corp, Ramadas Kamath, senior vice president, Infosys, and Abhay Jain of Manipal Group among others.
His efforts include: Setting up a computer centre in his school (St Joseph’s Indian High School, Bangalore) in 2000 at a cost of about Rs 50 lakh; donating a convention centre in the same year in the memory of his father at the Canara High School, Mangalore, his father’s alma mater; funding a computer centre at St Aloysius College, Mangalore, in memory of his close friend Dewang Mehta, who was head of Nasscom from 1991 to 2001; donating funds to St Aloysius High School in 2001, and to Mount St Joseph in 2002, to build schools; building a computer centre in Haliyal, a town in Karnataka, in 2003.
(This story appears in the 09 January, 2015 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
I am ardent fan of you Mr.Pai and what Manipal is to give to the country and to the world ,,we are all one big family . Dr.Krish Srikanth. MD FCARCSI .
on Jan 7, 2015