Buffett Plans India Trip to Talk Philanthropy

Image Courtesy Reuters

The third richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, is calendared to make his first trip to India in March to persuade local billionaires – India has at least 69 - to donate some of their vast wealth to charity. The programmes are scheduled to be held in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Buffet will come be here along with fellow do-gooder billionaire Bill Gates, with whom he has formed an initiative called the ‘Giving Pledge’.

The duo plan to convince Indian billionaires to part with a portion of their riches for charity, while also taking time out to study models of philanthropy adopted locally, as they did while in China last year.

 Buffett will begin his India trip at an industrial township on the outskirts of the country’s tech capital, Bangalore. There he is slated to meet industry biggies Baba Kalyani of Kalyani Group, Infosys’ Kris Gopalakrishnan and Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.

Then Buffet and Gates will travel to Mumbai and Delhi where they will probably meet the likes of Mukesh Ambani to drive forward the global giving initiative. Started in the US in 2010, ‘Giving Pledge’ has already seen big ticket pledges from Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Michael Bloomberg, David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, and Mark Zuckerberg , founder of social media Facebook.