Rohini Nilekani, founder of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies on Tuesday said the wealthy of the country have a responsibility to contribute towards larger social good. Rohini Nilekani is the Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Co-founder and Director of EkStep, a non-profit education platform. She is also the Founder and Former Chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation she set up in 2001 for sustainable water and sanitation, which funds initiatives all across India.
Updated Sep 27, 2023 | 08:58 PM IST
Rohini Nilekani, founder of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies on Tuesday said the wealthy of the country have a responsibility to contribute towards larger social good. (Pic- www.dakshin.org)
Rohini Nilekani, founder of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies on Tuesday said the wealthy of the country have a responsibility to contribute towards larger social good.
“You cannot have societies where wealth is only used to benefit the wealthy. Otherwise, why would societies want to create that wealth?” she said.
Noting that Indian philanthropists must challenge old ideas and innovate, she added.
Highlighting the role of philanthropists in creating a fairer society, Nilekani said, “I think philanthropists need to take on more risky philanthropy.”
“There is growing inequality in the world,” she further said as quoted by Economic Times.
Noting that the economic value is narrowly concentrated, Nilekani said, “You have to let that value flow all the way down.”
Nilekani said if wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a few, the government may have reason to look to other means such as higher taxation to distribute wealth more fairly.
She also said that the masses are not yet resentful of the wealthy, but if they will remain that way depends on how the wealthy behave.
Nilekani said, “New technology has a role to play in philanthropy. There are new technologies, which can help everyone do their own part and do it with much less friction.”
“I think every wealthy person in this country should find their own way of clearly and transparently signalling their own philanthropy,” she said, adding that everyone is a human and citizen first, rather than a consumer.
“You can’t keep on consuming your way out of bad governance, out of bad markets,” Nilekani added.
Nilekani also cited Ekstep Foundation, which she co-founded in 2015 with her husband, and how it cooperated with the government to set up Diksha (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing), a national online platform for school education where now even private education sector players are encouraged to participate, according to Economic Times.
She said society, government, and market have to work together to achieve societal goals. For instance, her organisation Pratham Books, which started in 2004, works with governments to improve access to books in government schools.
Who is Rohini Nilekani? Her life, education, and philanthropic work
Rohini Nilekani is the Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Co-founder and Director of EkStep, a non-profit education platform. She is also the Founder and Former Chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation she set up in 2001 for sustainable water and sanitation, which funds initiatives all across India.
An author by profession, Rohini Nilekani is the wife of Nandan Nilekani who co-founded Infosys. Rohini grew up in a middle-class family in Mumbai. Her father was an engineer and her mother a homemaker. She holds a degree in French literature from Elphinstone College.
From 2004 to 2014, Nilekani was the Founder-Chairperson and chief funder of Pratham Books, a non-profit children’s publisher that reached millions of children during her tenure. The organisation has created an open creative commons platform, Story Weaver, to make reading material accessible to children. The platform today has over 55,000 stories in 340 languages contributed from across the world.
She sits on the Board of Trustees of ATREE, an environmental think tank.
In the past, she has served on the Audit Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the Eminent Persons Advisory Group of the Competition Commission of India.
In 2017, she was inducted as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been a member of the Board of Science Gallery Bengaluru, the Advisory Board of the Well Being Project since 2019, and the Dakshin Foundation since 2021. Rohini was voted the Best Grassroots Philanthropist by the Forbes India Leadership Award in 2022.
Rohini Nilekani is a committed philanthropist and has been named ‘the most generous woman in India’ for the third consecutive time in 2022 by the Hurun India Philanthropy Report. In 2017, she signed the Giving Pledge with her husband Nandan Nilekani, which commits half their wealth to philanthropic causes.
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