The Lunch with Azim Premji

Days after tech tycoon Azim Premji officially announced he’d signed the Giving Pledge, the Indian billionaire made his biggest philanthropic donation ever: Premji, ranked as India’s third richest person with a fortune of over $13 billion, announced Friday that he is donating $2.2 billion, or a 12% stake, in his IT outsourcer Wipro, to a trust to fund his education-focused Azim Premji Foundation.

Azim Premji Foundation scales up work to improve equity and quality of primary education system.

Azim Premji, a former critic of the UPA govt, gave it high marks for recent measures which he said are good for industry and investors.

India's wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani on Sunday criticised Western philanthropy as counter-productive and said his own country's approach to charity gave more self-respect to the needy.Ambani, who heads petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, said that rapidly-growing India could create a more sustainable model in which businesses were an beneficial part of society.Speaking in New Delhi, he described corporate charity in the West as "a system where the more privileged is able to share a certain proportion of their wealth with the less privileged".

Two of the world's richest men, software pioneer Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett, are set to visit India this week to persuade the country's super-wealthy to part with more of their cash.The pair made headlines last year when they said they would seek to get fellow billionaires to commit half of their wealth to good causes as part of the "Giving Pledge". So far, 59 rich Americans have taken the pledge.

We will see more investments happening in India by Indian entrepreneurs than we had seen in the past 18 months, says Premji.

Wipro will sell a small stake if it is not able to bring down the promoter holding to 75% even after the completion of demerger process, said Premji.

Wipro's Azim Premji emerges as Asia's top philanthropist