Philanthropy: From temples to technology – India’s wealthy are finally giving to science – India’s wealthy are finally giving to science

Last year, Indian-American physicist Jainendra Jain, a co-recipient of the prestigious 2025 Wolf Prize and a figure well-known for his revolutionary research in quantum physics, was taken aback when he received a call from an Indian real estate tycoon.

Abhishek Lodha of the Lodha Group, whose projects include the ultra-luxury, golden-hued Trump Tower overlooking the Arabian Sea in southern Mumbai, asked the Penn State University professor if he could lead a new theoretical physics institute in the city as its founding director.

“I was pleasantly surprised someone building skyscrapers would suddenly be interested in putting money into fundamental sciences. It’s a common thing to do for very rich people in the US, but not so much in India,” Jain told the BBC in late May at the glittering launch of the Lodha Theoretical Physics Institute.

Weeks later, Rajiv Bajaj, scion to one of the country’s oldest business dynasties, launched India’s largest scholarship programme for women in core engineering, where female scholars would receive financial support of up to 800,000 rupees ($8,411, £6,293) for their education across select reputed universities.

In a country where faith rather than science has played an outsized role in philanthropy – nearly half of donations go to temples and religious organisations – this fresh wave of commitments to pure sciences and institution building marks a turning point in the way India’s wealthy are approaching giving.

A bevy of Indian tycoons have ramped up monetary commitments to such initiatives – from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan funding brain research to pharmaceuticals entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw starting a laboratory for frontier biology in 2022 to pursue cutting-edge research and innovation in bio-sciences.

At least half-a-dozen other tech billionaires, especially from Bengaluru – often called India’s Silicon Valley – have pledged significant amounts for everything from robotic astronomy to multi-specialty medical research in recent years.

The trend appears to reflect a growing recognition among the well-heeled that science and long-term national competitiveness are closely linked, say experts.

“No great nation has thrived without a deep scientific base. And we believe India produces great minds. So it’s not for a shortage of talent that this has not yet taken off, but a shortage of infrastructure,” Abhishek Lodha, CEO of the Lodha Group, told the BBC.

“We hope people can spend years doing high-quality research at our institute, and this ecosystem can over time lead to innovation, commercialisation and then technology.”

Lodha said he has earmarked $100mn over the next eight to 10 years to get the institute off the ground.