Philanthropy
Three institutions, one inheritance — from a charitable will written in 1956 to a living bridge between India and France.
A continuum of giving
The Lahoti family’s philanthropy has grown across three generations of institutions, each building on the one before. The Rai Saheb Pannalal Hiralal Lahoti Charitable Trust laid the foundation, with education and medicine as its two purposes. The Krishnakriti Foundation widened that commitment into fine arts, culture and international scholarship. And the Franco-Indian Education Trust extended it into a bilateral platform spanning the full breadth of higher education.
Three complementary strands run through them all: the family’s historic commitment to educational philanthropy, the Krishnakriti Foundation’s experience in scholarships and cultural exchange, and — most recently — the French Embassy’s academic and institutional network.
How it unfolded
The foundation stone
The oldest of the family’s institutions descends directly from the estate and testamentary wishes of Rai Saheb Pannalal Hiralal Lahoti. In a will dated 21 April 1956, he directed that one-fourth of his estate be set aside as a fund for hospitals and educational institutions — the share between the two to be settled by his executors. A formal trust deed, executed on 10 June 1974, gave that direction its enduring shape as the Rai Saheb Pannalal Hiralal Lahoti Charitable Trust.
With property and charitable activity reaching across Hyderabad and Hingoli, and a registered office in Kolkata, the Trust mirrored the family’s commercial reach across the former Hyderabad State and beyond. Its two-fold mandate — education and medicine — remains the root from which every later act of giving has grown.
One-fourth of the estate, set aside in perpetuity for hospitals and educational institutions.The will of Rai Saheb Pannalal Hiralal Lahoti · 1956
Art as a civic necessity
Founded in 2003 in memory of the late Krishnachandra B. Lahoti, the Krishnakriti Foundation widened the family’s philanthropy from education and medicine into the world of art and culture — in the conviction that art is not a luxury but a civic necessity.
Through the Foundation, the family supports fine-arts students at home and abroad, runs Hyderabad’s annual Krishnakriti Festival, and carries art into the city’s public life. Each year it supports dozens of students, and its prestigious Krishnakriti French Scholarship, run with the Embassy of France, has for over a decade opened the doors of France’s finest art institutions to young Indian artists.
A bridge between two nations
Established in August 2017 as a joint initiative of the Embassy of France in India and Prshant K. Lahoti — managing trustee of the Krishnakriti Foundation — the Franco-Indian Education Trust was unveiled in March 2018 during the state visit of President Emmanuel Macron.
A distinct institution in its own right, though sharing trustees and purpose with the Krishnakriti Foundation, the Trust was built as a structured platform bringing public institutions and private philanthropy together in support of educational mobility between the two countries — for students, faculty, researchers and young professionals alike, across disciplines from the arts and sciences to engineering, management and the social sciences.
What the Trust set out to do
Programmes & partners
One family, one purpose
From a charitable will in 1956 to a bridge between two nations, the Lahoti family’s giving has always returned to a single belief — that education and culture belong to everyone.