Each of these institutions works in frontier areas of learning, research and knowledge dissemination. The ideas that have generated from these institutions and the people who have passed through their portals have enriched the various facets of India's development. Each of these institutions has produced a large number of social scientists, cancer specialists, nuclear scientists and distinguished institutional administrators who have all strived to make the country a power to reckon with in science and technology.
In the last decade, the Trust has also given shape to the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore and helped the Dr MS Swaminathan Research Foundation to start the JRD Tata Centre for Ecotechnology in Chennai.
In addition to these institutions, it has started with the assistance of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, Asia's first institute for the training of the rural blind, The Tata Agricultural and Rural Training Centre for the Blind, and with the cooperation of the United Nations, the International Institute of Demographic Studies.
The Trust also helps various organizations and individuals with its grants. Its grants consist of Endowment Grants, grants to Non-Governmental Organisations and Small Grants, while Individual Grants are given to deserving individuals for medical, travel or educational purposes.
What has helped the Trust in achieving its objectives has been the presence of distinguished personalities, most of them industry pioneers, on its board. Among them were JRD Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, Sir Ardeshir Dalal, Dr John Matthai and Sir Homi Mody.
The involvement of JRD Tata in the affairs of Trust is not just incidental. Being a trustee since the Trust's inception, he held the position of chairman during the last 25 years of his life. His imprint is visible in the setting up of the Tata Memorial Hospital, The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, The Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the National Institute of Advanced Studies and the National Centre for the Performing Arts. His role was especially crucial in the establishment of the Tata Memorial Hospital. Right from its conceptual stages in early 1941, till it became a national centre for cancer research and treatment, JRD Tata was there all along to guide its destinies. In 1957, when the government of India's ministry of health temporarily took over the Tata Memorial Hospital, JRD Tata, along with Dr Homi Bhabha, the pioneer of India's nuclear energy programme, had the vision to foresee the role of radiation in cancer treatment and prevailed on the government to have the administrative control of the hospital transferred to the department of atomic energy in 1962.
He had also put his own money and efforts to set up, in 1944, the multipurpose JRD Tata Trust. Many years later, he established the JRD and Thelma J Tata Trust, selling part of his shares and an apartment in Mumbai. The Trust works to improve the lot of India's disadvantaged women.
What is typical of the Trust is that after establishing pioneering institutions, giving them shape and stabilizing them, the Trust has handed over their day-to-day running to the Government of India. Thus, The Tata Memorial Hospital is now under the government, run by the department of atomic energy. Similarly, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research too has been handed over the Atomic Energy Commission. Tata Institute of Social Sciences today is a Deemed University. In the case of TISS and the TIFR, the chairmen of the boards have so far been the representatives of the Tata Trusts. The Trust is represented on the governing council of the Tata Memorial Hospital. However, the Trust still takes interest in these institutions and contributes its mite to their running.
As neither Sir Dorabji nor Sir Ratan had any children, their holdings could well have been fragmented and with them Tata Sons. The Trusts that Sir Dorabji and Sir Ratan set up gave to Tata Sons a cohesive and a continuing character over decades.
It is easier to manage a social charity with a couple of focused priorities. But, it is not so in the case of a philanthropic organization that changes its focus in terms of the changing needs of the society, responding to them with utmost speed and care. The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust has kept its doors open to the needs of the society, especially of the underprivileged sections, even while functioning within the framework of its set objectives. Its responses, sensitivities and the deep understanding of the Indian society at large, have all helped it to maintain a creditable track record.
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