IRMA: Relevance @ 40

Unlike crop cultivation, most farmers now see dairying as an enterprise, says the author

Verghese Kurien, India’s milkman nonpareil, made me an offer in May 1979 that I could not refuse.  He was the chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) at Anand then.  He wanted me to help him set up the new Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), the first of its kind anywhere in the world. When I went to Anand a month later, I discovered that there were no documents or reports regarding the yet-to-be registered institute, save the routine draft Memorandum and Articles of Association.  It existed in the thoughts, often disjointed, of Dr Kurien and Kamla Chowdhry,