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Anil Agarwal: Anil Agarwal Foundation
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According to the Anil Agarwal Foundation, Vedanta University will be modeled most closely on Stanford and Harvard universities and aims to be a peer institution to them in terms of world class research and education. Unlike other smaller prominent institutions in India which are focussed entirely on technical education, the planned university would be multidisciplinary in nature, encompassing all domains of human endeavour. It will provide the "finest quality of education" in liberal arts, law, medicine, business, humanities, basic sciences and engineering. The university will house several interdisciplinary centres of excellence in areas such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology. It will support approximately 100,000 undergraduate, masters and doctoral students enrolled in 95 disciplines, and employ a few thousand internationally renowned faculty members, making it one of the largest universities in the world. Vedanta University will have a roughly equal mix of Indian and foreign students.
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In 2006, the Anil Agarwal Foundation entered in to an MOU with the Orissa Government to set up the Vedanta University, a ‘not-for-profit’ initiative along the picturesque Puri- Konark marine drive in Orissa. The University and associated townships are on a 6300 acre campus, master planned by Ayers Saint Gross, the notable university architects and planners from Baltimore, Maryland USA.
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The MoU gives a lot of justification for the huge size of the plot the Anil Agarwal Foundation has asked for the university. It says that the campus would have academic and non-academic buildings to cater to the needs of one lakh students and faculty and staff of half that number.
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It may be mentioned here that Agarwal has promised $1 billion in 2006 from his Anil Agarwal Foundation to set up Vedanta University, to be built on a 6,000-acre with capacity to accommodate 100,000 students. Similarly, Nilekani, a former journalist, pledged $ 25 million in 2005 to Arghyam, which helps India's rural poor get better access to water and sanitation services and heads the Akshara Foundation, which focuses on elementary education, and Pratham Books, a publisher of children's books. Recently, she donated another $ 12.5 million, mainly to Arghyam, the report added.
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Vedanta and the Anil Agarwal Foundation want to go beyond business and do their bit for education in the country. They wants it to be the best possible and, more importantly, the biggest possible.
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Sumita Das Gupta rates Anil as best teacher in world & owes her foundation to years she spent under Anil. She remembers Anil had an uncanny capacity of focusing on thoughts of your mind. He could assess your interest, which you could be unaware of. One could never give less than optimum under Anil as he himself set very high standards to be followed by others.
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