Verghese Kurien (26 November 1921 – 9 September 2012), known as the "Father of the White Revolution" in India, was a social entrepreneur whose "billion-litre idea", Operation Flood, made dairy farming India's largest self-sustaining industry and the largest rural employment sector providing a third of all rural income. It made India the world's largest milk producer, doubled the milk available for each person, and increased milk output four-fold in 30 years. He pioneered the Anand model of dairy cooperatives and replicated it nationwide, based on various "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches, where no milk from a farmer was refused and 70–80% of the price by consumers was paid in cash to dairy farmers who controlled the marketing, procurement, and processing of milk and milk products as the dairy's owners. An invention at Amul was the production of milk powder from buffalo milk instead of from cow milk, which was in short supply in India. He also made India self-sufficient in edible oils and fought against the "oil kings", who used underhanded and violent methods to enforce their dominance over the oilseed industry. Early life and education Kurien was born on 26 November 1921 in Kozhikode, Kerala, as the son of civil surgeon Dr. P. K. Kurien, to an Anglican Suriyani Nasrani family. He attended school at Diamond Jubilee Higher Secondary School, Gobichettipalayam, in Coimbatore district (now Erode district, Tamil Nadu) while his father worked at the government hospital there. He joined Loyola College (an affiliated college of the University of Madras) at the age of 14, graduated in physics in 1940, and received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy, which at that time was also part of the University of Madras, in 1943. His father died when he was 22 years old. Shortly afterwards, his maternal grand-uncle Cherian Matthai, took Kurien's family under his wings and brought them to his home in Trichur. He wanted to join the army as an engineer, but his mother persuaded him to join the Tata Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur, on a recommendation by his uncle, who was a director with the Tatas, and from where he graduated in 1946. He soon wanted to disassociate with his uncle's sycophants. Kurien left and applied for a scholarship provided by the government of India, and chose to study dairy engineering. His uncle John Matthai, the finance minister, refused to bail him out.