Verghese Kurien's 94th birthday: Google remembers India's Milk Man the doodle way!

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: In a simple ode to the simple life of a man, who became the pioneer of the Milk Revolution in India, internet giant Google has dedicated its trademark doodle to Verghese Kurien, remembering him on his 94th birth anniversary.

Popularly known as the “Milkman of India”, his work in framing the milk cooperative helped empower milkmen all over the country not only yield more but also provided the infrastructure for better storage thus significantly reducing wastage of milk.

The doodle paints a wonderful picture of Verghese Kurien with a milk can in his hand, sitting next to a buffalo with a looped rope on the ground, which spells 'Google'. A herd of buffalos can also be seen in the background.

Born on November 26, 1921 in Kozhikode, Kerala, Kurien - who was destined to become India's top 'milkman' - graduated from Loyola College in 1940 and later completed his engineering from Guindy College of Engineering, Chennai. But it was after a brief stint at TISCO that he obtained a government of India scholarship to study dairy engineering.

He founded around 30 institutions of excellence (like AMUL, GCMMF, IRMA, NDDB) which are owned, managed by farmers and run by professionals. As the founding chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), Kurien was responsible for the creation and success of the Amul brand of dairy products. A key achievement at Amul was the invention of milk powder processed from buffalo milk (abundant in India), as opposed to that made from cow-milk, in the then major milk producing nations. This led Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to appoint him the founder-chairman of National Dairy Development Board(NDDB) in 1965, to replicate Amul's "Anand model" nationwide.

Verghese Kurien died on 9th September, 2012, at the age of 90, after a brief spell of illness in Nadiad, near Anand in Gujarat, India.