Shiv Nadar tops India’s ‘most generous’ list again
Shiv Nadar and family have retained the top spot on the country’s ‘most generous’ list with a donation of Rs 2,708 crore. The HCL Technologies founder increased his contribution by 26% from last year’s Rs 2,153 crore. The total donations by the ‘haves’, as recorded by the Philanthropy List 2025, increased by a healthy 22% to 10,500 crore from Rs 8,8783 crore last year.
The list, compiled by Hurun India and EdelGive, an arm of the Edelweiss group, interestingly shows 24 new women entrepreneurs entering the list with Rohini Nilekani being the most generous with a contribution of Rs 204 crore.
Significantly, sectors like software and start-ups have emerged as big donors proportionate to their size. Some like Zirodha (the Kamath brothers) are bypassing the traditional donation routes like ‘education’ to provide funds for new concerns like climate change, noted Hurun India’s Anees Junaid.
Mukesh Ambani and the Reliance Foundation are at second place with a donation of Rs 626 crore, up from Rs 407 crore last year. The group has a wide portfolio of beneficiaries including healthcare, sports development and heritage conservation.
At third and fourth place are legacy groups - the Bajaj family and Kumarmangalam Birla - with notable donations of Rs 446 crore and Rs 440 crore, respectively. Gautam Adani and the Adani Group were at fifth spot with a contribution of Rs 386 crore.
Answering questions, Hurun’s Junaid said the data collection did not do a deep dive to indicate ‘generosity’ in proportion of the size of the group. For instance Reliance Industries’ market capitalization is $240 billion while Mr Mukesh Ambani’s personal wealth stands at Rs 105 billion. A donation of Rs 626 crore with these parameters would pale into insignificance when compared to Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s donation of Rs 83 crore from a group that generated just $2.2 billion in revenue last year and has a market capitalization of $7.5 billion.
This year, 191 individuals featured on the Hurun-EdelGive list, lower than 203 donors of last year. However, the average donation saw an increase to Rs 54 crore from Rs 43 crore last year.