Premji's $2-bn endowment to finance Azim Premji University

In what is being seen as the largest endowment of its kind, chairman of India's third largest IT services firm, Wipro, Azmi Premji, has transferred 213 million of the company's equity shares worth nearly $2 billion (Rs8,846 crore) to the Azim Premji Foundation, augmenting the resources of the trust.

According to Wipro, the transfer will be effected by 7 December. The Foundation was started in 2001 and has since been working in the area of quality education for the underprivileged in association with several state governments.

The foundation's next major initiative is The Azim Premji University, is to be set up in Bangalore.

''We believe that good education is crucial to building a just, equitable, humane and sustainable society. We want to contribute significantly towards improvement of education in India, and through that towards building a better society,'' Premji noted in a statement.

''All our efforts, including the university that we are setting up, are focused on the underprivileged and disadvantaged sections of our society. Our experience of the past 10 years has motivated us to significantly scale up our initiatives, across multiple relevant dimensions,'' he added.

He added that the endowment would serve the long term financial commitment towards scaling the activities of the foundation.