NAME: ANIL AGARWAL AGE: 52 DESIGNATION: Exec Chairman STATE: Vedanta Resources

Several business tycoons and maharajas have envisaged and endowed universities, but no one has ever proposed anything on this scale. Vedanta Resources Chairman Anil Agarwal has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik to establish Vedanta University in the state with an endowment of $1 billion (Rs 4,700 crore) from his personal resources. Agarwal is hoping that his dream university will produce tomorrow's Nobel laureates, Olympic champions and community leaders and also spawn an education and research eco-system a la Stanford University and Palo Alto.

Agarwal, who started his business career in Mumbai more than three decades as a metal scrap trader, now presides over a $1.9-billion (Rs 8,930-crore) global metals business with operations in India, Zambia and Australia. His career really took off in 1983 when he bought a mothballed copper cable plant in the US and shipped it back to India. Thus was Sterlite Industries born. Over the next two decades, Agarwal steered this company into the ranks of the leading metals companies in India. His next break came in 2000 when he bought Balco when it was privatised. This deal was greeted with litigation, strikes and political agitations. But Agarwal, displaying a politically savvy management style that few thought he possessed, gradually overcame the opposition to the deal. This was followed in quick succession by his buyout of Hindustan Zinc (again from the government) and the consolidation of all his holdings into Vedanta Resources and its listing on the London Stock Exchange.

He has had his brushes with controversies, too. The entire privatisation process involving Balco and HZL was strewn with all kinds of allegations. But none of them could be proved. Vedanta has now embarked upon a $2-billion (Rs 9,400-crore) expansion programme which he hopes will catapult it into the ranks of the top global players. His ambition, according to reports, is to position Vedanta in the same league as British MNC Anglo-American. Given his achievements, only the very foolhardy will bet against that.