Google celebrates Verghese Kurien’s 94th birth anniversary
Verghese Kurien is a household name in thousands of villages in India. He was instrumental in changing the milk scenario of India. It was because of his efforts that the White Revolution took place in India. He is also known as the ‘Father of the White Revolution’. His efforts converted India from a milk-deficient country to the World’s largest milk producing country in the world. As of 2010-11, India contributes about 17% of the World’s total output.
Here we are going to give you a few interesting facts about Verghese Kurien.
- He experimented with ways to produce milk powder from buffalo milk. These experiments helped establish India’s first ever milk powder plant. The plant was inaugurated by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru on October 31st.
- The white revolution started by him led to the development of Mother Dairy.
- He also headed a few important institutions such as GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd) and NDDB (National Dairy Development Board)
- Manthan, a film set about India’s Milk Cooperative movement was funded by farmers on the request of Verghese. When Benegal’s Manthan was unable to raise the required funds, Kurien asked his farmers to donate 2 Rs each to the film. Later, all the farmers went to see the movie together, not because they could relate to the story but because they felt a strong sense of pride because of their contribution to the film.
- He gave a passionate speech at a conference held in Rome, which lead to several European countries contributing milk to ‘Operation Flood’.
- Verghese Kurien is also the recipient of Padmashri (1965) and Padmabhushan (1966).
- The University of Michigan also awarded him and an honorary degree in 1965, for his work in the field of dairy.
- Because of his contribution to the dairy industry, November 26th, his birthday is also celebrated as National Milk day.
