The list has been compiled by the Shanghai-based The Hurun Research Institute, the second year it has done this ranking, of an 'India philanthropy list'.
Nadar and his family donated Rs 826 crore, while Azim Premji gave Rs 453 crore and Ambani parted with Rs 402 crore, according to the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2019.
Shiv Nadar and family donated Rs 2,708 crore (Rs 27.08 billion) in 2024-2025.
When it comes to philanthropy, Indians don't share the table with the likes of Bill Gates but still there are a few who do really donate and the latest list is topped by Azim Premji of Wipro.
Start-up entrepreneurs nearly doubled their contribution to philanthropy in 2022 but their numbers shrank. They decreased to only three (from five) in the top 100 of the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List of 2022 which was released on Thursday. Over the year, no new start-up whizz kid joined the list either. The three start-up entrepreneurs who made it to the list contributed collectively Rs 166 crore in FY22, nearly double that of Rs 83 crore in FY21.
IT major HCL Technologies' Shiv Nadar has retained his position as the 'most generous Indian' in 2023 as well, with a 76 per cent jump in his donations at Rs 2,042 crore. Wipro's Azim Premji's donations zoomed by 267 per cent to Rs 1,774 crore during the same year, according to the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2023 released on Thursday. Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani donated Rs 376 crore in the year, which is an 8 per cent decline.
Azim Premji and his family gave away Rs 7,904 crore (Rs 79.04 billion) in philanthropy, up 1,645 per cent!!! over the previous year.
He is followed by Nandan Nilekani and Narayan Murthy in Hurun India Philanthropy List
Software giant Wipro's Azim Premji donated Rs 9,713 crore or Rs 27 crore a day to retain his top rank among Indian philanthropists in FY21. Premji, the founder chairman of the company, increased his donation by nearly a fourth during the pandemic year, as per the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2021, which had HCL's Shiv Nadar at second place with contributions of Rs 1,263 crore towards upliftment causes. Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, India's richest man, came third on the list with a Rs 577 crore contribution and was succeeded by Kumar Mangalam Birla with Rs 377 crore.
IT czar Azim Premji has given away almost half of his stakeholding in Wipro, India's third largest exporter of software services, to philanthropy.
Indian industry's doyen Jamsetji Tata has emerged as the biggest philanthropist globally in the last century by donating $102 billion, as per a list of top-50 givers prepared by Hurun Report and EdelGive Foundation.' Tata, the founder of what has now become a group spanning interests from salt to software, is ahead of others like Bill Gates and his now estranged wife Melinda who have donated $74.6 billion, Warren Buffet ($37.4 billion), George Soros ($34.8 billion) and John D Rockefeller ($26.8 billion), the list showed.
IT major Wipro's Azim Premji donated Rs 22 crore a day or Rs 7,904 crore in a year to emerge as the most generous Indian in FY20 and top a list of philanthropy. Premji pipped HCL Technologies' Shiv Nadar, who had earlier topped the list collated by Hurun Report India and Edelgive Foundation, by a wide margin.
Roshni, also a trained classical musician, came on the board of HCL Technologies in 2013 and was vice chairperson. Shiv Nadar would continue to be MD of the company with designation as chief strategy officer.
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