Insta
BITS Pilani Gets $1 Million Donation From US-Based Alumni Couple
Swarajya Staff
Nov 19, 2018, 03:48 PM | Updated 03:48 PM IST
Save & read from anywhere!
Bookmark stories for easy access on any device or the Swarajya app.
India's premier engineering and science institute BITS Pilani has announced that it received a $1 million pledge, the highest individual donation ever received by the institution from a US-based alumni couple for its campus programme, reports Financial Express.
The couple, Prashanth and Anuradha Palakurthi, made the donation announcement on Friday (16 November), during the ruby anniversary celebrations of Prashanth’s 1978-83 batch.
'Momentous and a game-changing gesture', Prof Souvik Bhattacharyya, Vice-Chancellor, BITS Pilani, said.
“ BITS Pilani would launch a campaign to set up a Rs 100 crore Research Endowment Fund. The fund would help provide additional thrust to research by way of attracting research-driven faculty, post-doctoral fellows and research scholars,” he said.
The donation would also help set up advanced research labs to pursue an institutional research agenda and provide seed fund support to new faculty, Prof Bhattacharyya added.
Prashanth Palakurthi is the Founder and CEO of US-based Reflexis Systems, while his wife Anuradha, the founder of Juju Productions, is a professional singer as well as a radio personality in the United States.
In July this year, BITS Pilani was conferred the ‘Institute of Eminence (IoE)’ status by the Union government along with IISc Bangalore, IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay.
BITS Pilani has four campuses at Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai and features among the prestigious rankings such as QS Asia ranking.
Recently, it featured in the World top 500 when it was ranked 401 in the Times Higher Education 2019 Subject Ranking for Life Sciences.
Save & read from anywhere!
Bookmark stories for easy access on any device or the Swarajya app.
Support Swarajya's 50 Ground Reports Project & Sponsor A Story
Every general election Swarajya does a 50 ground reports project.
Aimed only at serious readers and those who appreciate the nuances of political undercurrents, the project provides a sense of India's electoral landscape. As you know, these reports are produced after considerable investment of travel, time and effort on the ground.
This time too we've kicked off the project in style and have covered over 30 constituencies already. If you're someone who appreciates such work and have enjoyed our coverage please consider sponsoring a ground report for just Rs 2999 to Rs 19,999 - it goes a long way in helping us produce more quality reportage.
You can also back this project by becoming a subscriber for as little as Rs 999 - so do click on this links and choose a plan that suits you and back us.
Click below to contribute.