India's accidental Dairy King

He was a man who saw the world as a conflict between the clever and the foolish, and took the side of both to push his plans through. In his final years, he became a lumbering patriarch with an illuminated face and dark twinkling eyes, who was very aware of his greatness but chose his words with care in a nation where humility is the only permissible form of pride. 

When he was young, a friend took him to an astrologer who discerned people’s fate by measuring their shadows at noon. The shadow astrologer, obviously, worked far from the Equator. Mr. Kurien recounts the experience in his  memoirs, “I Too Had a Dream,” which he wrote with the journalist Gouri Salvi. The astrologer foretold an extraordinary career.

It was an accidental career. He arrived in Anand reluctantly in the summer of 1949 as a government clerk. Circumstances soon made him the general manager of a farmers’ cooperative, the Kaira District Milk Producers Union Ltd.

He swiftly increased the cooperative’s milk production, but to expand it further he needed a scientific breakthrough. He had to find a way to convert buffalo milk into milk powder, which the leading dairy experts of the time said was impossible. But, with the help of a friend who was a chemist, he achieved the seeming miracle. Mr. Kurien implied in his memoirs that the supposed impossibility of converting buffalo milk into powder was a myth created by the Western world, which had abundant cow’s milk and wanted other nations, like India, to continue to import its milk powder.

Over time, Mr. Kurien’s stature rose. Some of the most important politicians in the country, including prime ministers, stayed in his house when they visited Anand. The first time Jawaharlal Nehru stayed with them, Mr. Kurien and his wife, Molly, refrigerated a rose so that the prime minister could put the fresh flower in his buttonhole, as was his style. But soon the couple got tired of all the fuss around dignitaries. Once, a very tall governor was to visit, and his security detail complained that the bed in Mr. Kurien’s guest room was too short. In response, Mr. Kurien asked his excellency to sleep diagonally.

In the late 1950s, Mr. Kurien decided to market the produce of the cooperative through a brand name, and that led to the creation of one of the most enduring Indian brands, Amul Butter. Amul’s billboard advertisements, which play on current affairs, are a parallel historical record of modern India. So endearing is the brand that even The Times of India, which does not grant any corporation free mileage on its editorial pages and even blurs images of company logos in its editorial photographs, carries images of Amul’s billboards when the brand is in the news. Mr. Kurien’s obituary was, inescapably, accompanied by the images of Amul’s billboards in several newspapers.

Rahul Da Cunha, whose advertising agency designs the Amul advertisements, was 6 when he first met Mr. Kurien. At that meeting, he told me: “Dr. Kurien gave me a big box as a gift. I opened it and found just papers. At the bottom was a small cube of Amul cheese.”

Mr. Kurien, who was probably the most famous dairy administrator in the world, didn’t like drinking milk.

Manu Joseph in The New York Times. Here

Imran Siddiqi bags Infosys Award

Dr. Imran Siddiqi, Scientist and Group Leader, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad has bagged the Infosys award for outstanding scientists.

Dr Imran Siddiqi has been chosen for the Infosys Rrize 2011 in Life Science by the Infosys Science Foundation for his path-breaking contribution to the understanding of clonal seed formation in plants which could revolutionize agriculture for poor farmers in developing countries.

The award carries a cash prize of Rs 50 lakh, with a 22-karat gold medal, and a citation.

More Here and Here and Here

Be alive to the purpose of life!!

Nazima Almas Sayed

Here is an interview which is very interesting, heartening and inspiring. It is very brief, specific and full of message.

It is all about a girl named Nazima Almas Sayed. She is from Nagpur. She has stood all alone and first among the more than 11 lakh students who wrote the HSC exam. Besides she got second place in Vidharbha in the state Medical Entrance Exams, first in the state entrance for private colleges ASSOCET and second in the state Sevagram exams.

Coming from a family connected with the medical profession Nazima chalked out her aim of life very early in her life and started working to achieve it. She wants to be a cardialogist. “Heart is the most important part of the body. There I will use all my potential,” she beams with confidence.

She had the habit of preparing charts and pasting them on walls where they were easy to be noted always. So wherever she was at home, study matters were always in front of her eyes.

It is her advice to the Muslim students is what makes her unique. “Dare to dream. Have passion to fulfill that dream. Be persistent in hard work. Don’t be aimless in life.”

The journalist who has interviewed has done a good job. Well done, Najiya.

The Excerpts of the interview is given below.

Be alive to the purpose of life!!

By O Najiya, Two circles.net

“It feels great!” says Nazima Almas Sayed. And she has every reason to feel so – she bagged the first rank in the Maharashtra Higher Secondary Examination. Her achievements have not stopped there. She got second place in Vidharbha in the state Medical Entrance Exams, first in the state entrance for private colleges ASSOCET and second in the state Sevagram exams.

Nazima, a student of the Shivaji Science College of Nagpur, topped the HSE exams with 98.5% marks. Over 11.84 lakh students had attended the exam conducted in February-March.

Talking to TwoCircles.net, Nazima expressed her desire to pursue the medical profession, specializing in cardiology. “Heart is the most important part of the body. There I will use all my potential,” she said.

This only daughter of a doctor family had decided to take up the medical profession long back. Initially she wanted to become a gynaecologist like her mother. But later she changed her decision, she says, after meeting many people.

Nazima’s father is a doctor of general medicine. Her elder brother is a second year student of MBBS. Her younger brother studies in eighth standard.

“Teachers and friends had a great role in my success,” says Nazima. “Teachers taught me how to learn and answer questions. Multiple choice questions that I had in my entrance coaching classes were really helpful in having a deep understanding of things.”

So, how was her study method?

Nazima used to get up at four in the morning and study for an hour. Early morning study really helped, she says. Then she had tuitions before school time. In school, she used to attend classes with full concentration. “I depended mainly on my teachers’ lectures and text books. Notes given came only after that.” She had the habit of preparing charts and pasting them on walls where they were easy to be noted always. So wherever she was at home, study matters were always in front of her eyes.

Nazima also had a good company of friends. “We had a healthy competition among friends. We used to appreciate each other in success and correct in case of any mistakes,” Nazima said. And she expressed her happiness in the success of her friends who have achieved very good marks in HSE as well as entrance exams.

Now, what does she want to do for the society and community?

She says she wants to work against the social evils of abortion and female foeticide. She had attended programmes conducted by some NGOs against abortion, and that triggered in her the urgent need to fight against this social menace. She hopes her medical profession will offer her a great opportunity to serve the society.

Nazima, who has never been outside the country, loves to go abroad. She likes to go abroad and study the new and most modern technology in the medical field. And then she plans to come back home to implement here what she had learned. When asked about settling abroad, she said she did not like it. “I was born and brought up here. I love going out but don’t want to live there forever.”

“Being a Muslim doesn’t make you inferior in the society,” says Nazima. “Dare to dream. Have passion to fulfill that dream. Be persistent in hard work. Don’t be aimless in life.”

Nazima believes that each human being has been born and brought to the world for a purpose. One should realize that purpose and live up to it.

And her message to the Muslim students?

‘Be alive to the purpose of your life.’