Page 8 - Hari Mohan Gupta

HISTORY

milestones

n alumnus of the Awadhesh Pratap Singh University, Rewa (Madhya Pradesh), Hari Mohan Gup-
A ta (HMG) took to the entrepreneurial path immediately after graduation successfully launching
several ventures in metal extraction and industrial cables and conductors. Simultaneously, he became
actively involved with the family’s fast-expanding media business — his Jhansi-based father Gurudev
Gupta and brother Pooranchand Arya had promoted Dainik Jagran in 1942 to support the Quit India
movement and freedom struggle. Since then Dainik Jagran has evolved into India’s largest circulated
daily with 37 editions countrywide and an Indian Readership Survey (IRS) certified readership of 73.67
million spread across the states of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, among
others. HMG is director and resident editor of the Dainik Jagran, Bhopal edition.

“Although the Hindi heartland states of north India are abundantly endowed with high potential hu-
man resources, they have remained socio-economically backward because of a modern education
deficit. English, the link language of India and the global language of business and commerce, is in-
sufficiently written and spoken in this populous region. I believe it’s important that the highly skilled
and entrepreneurial people of the Hindi heartland states — that’s over 65 percent of the country’s
population — should have access to high-quality English and bilingual education. That was the moti-
vation behind promotion of JSW Society 22 years ago. Looking back, I am fairly satisfied that we have
demonstrated that high-quality bilingual affordable K-12 schools and internationally benchmarked
universities can be successfully promoted in Madhya Pradesh,” says Gupta.

In his trail-blazing mission to provide English-medium K to Ph D education to children and youth of
educationally under-served Madhya Pradesh — India’s second largest state (308,252 sq.km) — HMG
has been aided and abetted by his son Abhishek Mohan Gupta (right), a graduate of Leeds Metropol-
itan University (UK) and RMIT University (Australia), who serves on the board of the group’s four DPS
schools and is also pro-chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University.

132 | 21 Leaders Transforming Indian Education