Tonse Madhava Ananth Pai (30 April 1898 – 29 May 1979), was an Indian physician, educationist, banker, and philanthropist, most well-known for building the university town of Manipal, India.
Born in 1898, Tonse Madhava Ananta Pai belonged to a lower-middle-class household of Gowd Saraswat Brahmins of Kallianpur, a village in Udupi.
He was the first to start a private, self-financing medical college offering MBBS in India. Pai established the Kasturba Medical College in 1953 and the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1957, which was followed by a string of other educational institutions including Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Manipal Pre-University College. He, along with his brother Upendra Ananth Pai, also established Syndicate Bank originally in Udupi, Karnataka, which has its headquarters now in Manipal and Bangalore. He was responsible for its popular Pigmy Deposit Scheme. Pai was conferred the Padma Shri by the Indian government in 1972. He was awarded the degree of D.Litt. by Karnataka University, Dharwad in 1973 and the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam in 1975.
The Government of India brought out a stamp commemorating Pai on 9 October 1999. Pai has also been recognized by Ripley’s Believe It or Not as the person who has established the most number of educational institutions in his lifetime.
Picture Credits – https://www.daijiworld.com/chan
