Tag Archives: Nandan Nilekani

Indians Donate Millions to U.S. Universities, Forget India

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Top Indian industrialists are funding alumni base of Harvard University, reveals a recent survey by the U.S. News Short List. Meanwhile, the Indian universities are suffering from lack of contemporary IT infrastructure, absence of best practices and low student gross enrollment ratios (GER).  Yet, the top industrialists choose to invest westward instead of directing their funds towards Indian universities.

As per the news survey conducted annually among 1,800 schools and reports of two-year alumni, Princeton University was rated on the top, making it the most loved university for donations. It is also to be noted that unlike Indian universities, which are largely funded by tuition fees, western universities are mostly funded by donation. For example, only about 20 percent of Harvard expenditures are met by tuition fee collections while nearly 50 percent comes from donation. A significant amount of the donation comes from its alumni base.

A number of studies that are conducted to study alumni donation patterns reveal some relevant questions being asked like the age of the donor, what affiliation the donor has and what is the motivation of the giver. A few studies seem to suggest that some alumni donate with the hope that their children would get an easy passage into the same Ivy League institutions. Even when Anand Mahindra joined the ranks by giving the highest donation to any humanities discipline at Harvard, questions were raised whether the donation was timed with his two sons seeking college admissions.

Indian businessman Siddharth Yog gifted $11 million to his alma mater Harvard Business School and it made front page news since he made it to the rare category of single largest personal gifts made by any Indian to Harvard. Prior to him donations given to Harvard were by Anand Mahindra who donated $10 million, Ratan Tata donated $50 million to fund a campus building and Narayana Murthy donated $5.2 million to publish ‘The Murthy Classical Library of India’.

This has been an ongoing debate and every time an Indian donates to a university abroad, the question gains momentum again. When Ratan Tata became ‘the largest international donation in the Ivy League university’s 102-year history’, the apparent question asked was how Indian universities can compete globally, if Indians continue to fund western universities. Among other philanthropic contribution to American Universities are Rohini and Nandan Nilekani who had gifted $5 million to Yale University.

It isn’t that the donation to Indian universities is completely non-existent, but it is quite bleak compared to the amounts donated to universities abroad. Nandan Nilekani’s donation of $2.6 million to his alma mater, IIT to build a new hostel wing is often talked about.

At the same time there have been a few thoughtful Indian philanthropists who have contributed to the Indian education system. Azim Premji who is the chairman of Wipro and the third richest Indian, donated $2 billion to the Azim Pemji Foundation that works towards educating children in rural India. This has by far been the biggest act of philanthropy by an Indian. HCL founder Shiv Nadar donated 580 crore towards the Shiv Nadar Foundation which will be used to fund educational causes in India. Vineet Nayyar, MD of IT services company, Tech Mahindra, donated one third of his shares in the company to the Essel Social Welfare Foundation, a Delhi-based organization. The organization supports education of the girl child and the handicapped. Asit Kotecha, who owns Pashmina Realty and is founder of ASK Group, donated 30 crore to the Mumbai University for building an international convention centre (ICC).

On the other hand various reasons are citied for funds not flowing in for Indian universities by the Indian entrepreneurs. The reason why they contribute to endowment funds abroad rather than invest in Indian education as per Pramod Bhasin, Genpact President and Chief Executive Officer is “I think one of issues that people face, particularly NRIs, is that charitable donations made in India, may not be tax deductable as in the U.S., depending on factors such as how is a trust registered, whether it is recognized internationally or not…That could be an issue,” as reported to Business Line.

Another reason for the donations to universities abroad is that the Indian entrepreneurs feel that Indian universities do not have the ability to utilize the funds well.

Raising funds for building infrastructure, apart from day to day operations is a constant need of Indian universities as well as universities abroad. Many reports in fact throw up facts on how Indian universities do not rank in any of the International quality surveys. Further statistics also stress on the immediate need to build hundreds of new universities and to increase gross enrollment ratios at Indian colleges.

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‘UID’, Losing Its Own Identity

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Aadhaar, meant to be the single source of identification for Indians, is facing a lot of criticisms and risks, because of which the project is fearing its end at present. The news of present crisis and its doubtful completion came as a real shocker as many of lakhs of Indian citizens have already received their cards and the UID appointment cards are about to go online to ensure faster and seamless distribution.

'UID', Losing Its Own Identity

‘AADHAAR’ is an initiative of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India), which provides UID or Unique Identification Number to each Indian national. It is a 12-digit unique number said to be stored in centralized database and linked to the basic demographics and biometric information such as photographs, fingerprints and iris identification.

This UID or Aadhaar works as a proof of identification as well as of address. In the words of the Chairman of UIDAI, Nandan Nilekani, “UID is the number of life” for those millions of Indians who at present do not have access to public schemes. Till date, more than one 5.75 million, UID cards are issued.
Technically, as Aadhaar is entirely dependent on biometrics, there have been concerns expressed by some experts that the biometrics data is not reliable as it has shown 0.01 percent of error in fingerprints and iris alone; this low rate combined with the photograph match can achieve the massive level of uncertainty, to which the experts says this test ‘actually tells nothing’ and also that Aadhaar may achieve the power for civil autonomy and also can capture one’s solitary desecration while indulging their UID registering in non-government agencies.

In the political perception, the former CM of Kerala, V. S. Achuthanandan, including many others, claimed that this program was being launched without “proper debate”.

Hence technically, politically, economically and socially the UID project is facing many contradicting opinions. The UID initiative has an estimated cost of around 1,660 crore for the year 2010-11 and 2011-12, where more than 556 crore has already been spent on the scheme, which may not be recovered from the future revenue produced from the project. “Basically, we thought it was waste of money”, a member of the parliamentary standing committee had apparently stated. The committee members have doubted the utility purpose of the scheme and even the efficiency of the technology.

As stated by India Today, a draft report prepared by the parliamentary committee to refuse the National Identification Authority of India Bill is ready and will be revealed soon. The decision is taken communally by Parliaments standing Finance Committee and some of the Congress members, who also agree to the opinion that UID project is “directionless.”
Furthermore, it is said that the bill may not be dismissed entirely, but needs a thorough review or reconsideration but is not acceptable in its present form. Most voiced opponents against the scheme among the panel are MPs like S. S. Ahluwalia (BJP), Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI), Bhartruhari Mahtab (BJD) and Rashid Alvi (Congress) and also by finance minister, the home ministry and the Planning Commission. The draft report mentions that the UID concept has no clarity or purpose and also lacks a concept in its context and execution.
The draft report mainly has focuses on four of UID’s major drawbacks like – insertion of “residents” rather than “citizens”; privacy issues of those being registered as the UID numbers; duplication of the work being done for preparing the national population Register (NPR) using the same biometric attributes; and the massive expenditure that the projects entails.

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Chidambaram wants Nilekani to log out

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is getting a lot of mail these days. It was the turn of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to take up the protest pen on November 11, 2011, to raise serious security concerns about Nandan Nilekani’s Unique Identification Authority of India’s ‘Aadhar’ cards project. In his note, Chidambaram has also accused Nilekani of dangerously encroaching on the legally mandated enrolment work being conducted by the Registrar General of India, which is in the Home Ministry’s domain.

Reflecting the shadow war between him and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Chidambaram’s note suggests that its not only Nilekani who is encroaching on the Home Ministry’s territory. “The UIDAI was allowed to get enrolments of 10 crore residents through multiple registrars up to 31 March 2011.

This was raised to an additional 10 crore residents up to March 2012 by the Ministry of Finance (subject to post facto ratification by the CC-UIDAD. This was approved as interim measure.)”Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government. The Planning Commission had shot off two letters to the Finance Ministry and the Home Ministry protesting the UIDAI’s handling of finances. Its chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia suggested the UIDAI to be “financially self-contained with its own financial advisor entrusted with clearing expenditure within their approved budget while observing relevant government rules.”

After Nilekani bypassed Montek and requested the Finance Minister to grant him additional funds of `15,000 crore over and above the `2,000-crore plan allocation and `1,000 crore from the non-plan head, the Plan Panel was furious. “UIDAI’s present system represents a major departure from government procedures and removes all inbuilt checks and balances. We need a relook at the UIDAI’s administrative structure.” It can be inferred from Chidambaram’s note that Nilekani being unaccountable to the system is setting a dangerous precedent. Chidambaram writes the decision to register all citizens and issue identity cards to them precedes the formation of the UIDAI. The legal provisions were put in place way back in 2003. “The enrolments were to be done only by the Registrar General of India (RGI),’’ the note stresses, adding that “the primary role of UIDAI was clearly laid down: generate and assign UID to residents’’.

Chidambaram notes that despite the advice given to him by the PM to consult the Attorney-General to amend the legal provisions so as to render UIDAI data “acceptable’’, he was constrained to point out that “the NPR project has been conceived by the MHA based on its appreciation of internal security in the country.’’ Chidambaram writes while “the MHA is to carry out enrolment (biographic and biometric), the UIDAI is to carry out de-duplication and issue Aadhar numbers.’’

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