Two new private universities

[There's an update at the end of the post.]

It's worth highlighting these two because they appear to be a result of philanthropic efforts of the founders. Perhaps they will start a new trend for India's rich folks to follow.

1. Shiv Nadar University is a major new initiative from Shiv Nadar (of HCL Group of companies). It "seeks to be a leader in multi-disciplinary, research-led collaboration among faculty and students, and shall have a strong focus on high quality, result-oriented education. When fully operational, the university shall have about 8000 students on its fully residential campus. "

   SNU's academic programs are starting this year itself -- its School of Engineering and School of Natural Sciences are the first off the block. The application form states that the first batch of students will get a waiver of tuition fees -- a pretty steep Rs. 185,000 per year!-- for the entire course.

   Shiv Nadar's earlier educational footprints were in Chennai; his new institution, however, is is in UP -- in a 280+ acre campus near NOIDA.

2. The Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS) has the backing of a group that includes Nandan Nilekani and Rohini Nilekani (whose donation of Rs. 500 million to the institution was in the news recently). It's starting its masters program in 2012, with plans to roll out UG programmes soon afterwards. [Here's an interview of Aromar Revi, the founding director of IIHS].

   [Update: According to this report, IIHS plans to charge a tuition fee in the range of Rs. 300,000 to 400,000 for the masters program!]

   [I hope IIHS will soon switch to "ac.in" or "edu.in" from the current "co.in" in its URL.]

Are there other such philanthropic initiatives that are worth highlighting (and keeping an eye on)?

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Update (3 July 2011): Azim Premji University also belongs to this category. [Thanks, Hari, for the comment-alert].