Rohini Nilekani: Softer side

A former journalist, Rohini Nilekani makes no qualms about agreeing that the Infosys connection helps her in her philanthropic work. Married to Nandan Nilekani, former CEO Infosys and currently chairing the Unique Identification Authority of India, for Rohini is known for her philanthropic work and has been involved in development work in India for several years.

She is chairman and founder of Arghyam, which works on providing solutions to the water crisis in water-scarce regions of the country. She has also formed Akshara Foundation, a public charitable trust for underprivileged children and is working on providing better quality education. So far, the organisation has touched the lives of 3,50,000 children in Karnataka alone. She has also co-founded Pratham Books, a non-profit publishing house that brings out high quality, low-cost books for children in several languages.

Always in an activist mode, Rohini started to feel more comfortable about Infosys’ wealth once she understood how it was coming in – and how it would only help her in pushing her cause for development issues more effectively. She also feels that Infosys’ work and its philosophy helped hone her activist streak into a more effective tool. A published author, Rohini’s challenge has not been words, but really trying to make people see how wealth creating and wealth distribution can go hand-in-hand.

A mother of two, Rohini single-handedly brought up her two children while Nandan – whom she has met at a quizzing event in IIT -- was working relentlessly on making Infosys grow. She gave up work to stay at home and bring up her children, – a decision she thinks was one of the best she took. On a personal front, while she feels he is the calm one, she has made him more sensitive to the kind of work she is doing. We are converts, too.