The Bharti family, led by Sunil Mittal, has pledged Rs 7,000 crore — 10% of their family wealth, which includes 3% of their stake in the country’s largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel — to the Bharti Foundation, their philanthropic arm. The foundation, which runs the Satya Bharti schools in northern India for underprivileged children, now plans to set up the Satya Bharti University, which would provide free education in science and technology to deserving youth from economically weaker sections of the society. The pledged amount of Rs 7,000 crore would mostly go into setting up of the university in northern India, close to Delhi and Chandigarh on 100 acres of land, Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal said on Thursday.
Earlier this week Infosys co-founder and tech billionaire Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini Nilekani had joined 'The Giving Pledge', an elite network of the world's wealthiest individuals committing half their wealth to philanthropy. (Read more of this - http://bharatmahan.in/positive-news/nilekanis-commit-half-their-wealth-philanthropy-1400)
More of the story of Mittal's pledging to donate can be read in a report published in The Financial Express...
