Verghese Kurien, 'India's milkman,' dies

NEW DELHI -- Verghese Kurien, an engineer known as "India's milkman" who helped revolutionize the country's dairy industry despite his own dislike for milk, has died at age 90.

A longtime aide, P.A. Joseph, said Kurien died Sunday.

Kurien, a strong advocate of cooperatives, was convinced throughout his life that small farmers could succeed if they had access to technology and markets.

Indian leaders hailed him as a visionary who empowered thousands of dairy farmers and turned the nation into the world's largest milk producer.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Kurien had engineered a "white revolution." Kurien, who studied engineering at Michigan State University in the United States, returned to India soon after it won independence from Britain in 1947 and began working in its dairy industry.

As head of the National Dairy Development Board, a business model he created eventually included 10 million milk producers in a network of 96,000 dairy cooperatives. -- AP