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Thirty six leading Jain businessmen from India and abroad donated Rs.540 million ($13.75 million) to set up five academies to train students for the civil services examinations. The donations - each amounting to Rs.15 million - were made following an appeal by Jain spiritual leader Munishri Nayapadam Sagarji Maharaj at the Jain International Trade Organisation
(JITO) fair that opened in first week of January 2008. The money collected would be utilised to set up five training
academies to prepare students for the prestigious Indian Administrative Services
(IAS). Admissions will not be restricted only to Jains but deserving students from all sections of society shall be
admitted. The first such institute is already functional in New Delhi.
'The new academies shall be set up by July this year in
Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Indore and Chennai,' Girish Shah
one of the JITO organisers, said. He said that usually Jain students, who are mostly into businesses, are not inclined towards government services.
But those who are interested in serving the country and society,
will get an appropriate chance. In the JITO fair opened on
January 3, 2008, at NSE Exhibition Grounds in Goregaon in northwest
Mumbai nearly 200,000 people visited the fair. Dignitaries like the Sheikh of Dubai, IT wizard Sam
Pitroda, union ministers Praful Patel and Sushilkumar Shinde, the chief ministers of
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa, Shiv Sena executive president Udhav Thackeray and Dipak C. Jain, dean, Kellog School of Management, Chicago,
US visited the fair.
JITO president Hemant Shah said that the fair will give Jain businessmen and industrialists an opportunity to showcase their products and services to an
estimated one million visitors from all over the world.
Nearly 10,000 Jain delegates from 50 countries
expected to take part in the international
conference. The main attraction in the fair was the unique Jain Pavilion, which
displayed over 500 rare and ancient Jain artifacts from all over India.
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