Learning to grow

Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani’s headline-grabbing Rs 315 crore donation to IIT Bombay offers an uncomfortable reminder of the paucity of private finance in higher education. At a total of Rs 400 crore over several years, Mr Nilekani is among the most generous donors to an IIT— exceeding, for example, the Rs 100 crore that Rakesh Gangwal, InterGlobe Aviation co-founder, donated to IIT Kanpur last year, and equalling approximately the Rs 400 crore that a group of US-based alumni donated to IIT Bombay in 2021. But in terms of attracting private finance, the IITs remain the outliers in the notoriously underfunded