Anil Agarwal – The Real Boss

Sivaji – The Boss, even as some people wonder and question about the Rajnikanth phenomenon, the movie is running houseful in all the theaters and set to break all the box-office records. In the film, Sivaji (Rajni) will come to India to start Sivaji University with his personal fortune of Rs 200 crores.

If you thought all this spending of crores of rupees from their own wallets to start universities with the purpose to serve people can happen only in films, then it means you haven’t heard of the Real Boss story yet.

Anil Agarwal, who heads the metals and mining giant Vedanta Resources has donated $ 1 billion of his personal wealth to set up a world class, research-driven, multidisciplinary university, Vedanta University in the state of Orissa. And this university will be based on the not-for-profit model with a commitment to need-blind admissions.

Recently Time magazine recognized this initiative by Anil Agarwal by including the mining magnate in its list of Top 12 Power givers in the world – those donors who blend generosity with thoughtful activism to make contributions that count.

Also Forbes magazine in its profile of the billionaires list mentioned Vedanta University as India’s answer to Stanford. There is even a dedicated blog, vedantauniv, to keep track of the progress on Vedanta University and to discuss about the developments.

Let this billion-dollar philanthropists club grows in India.