Yesterday I thought I would get educated and went to a seminar organised by The Finnish Foreign Ministry about South East Asia. There was an excellent talk by Dr. Gladys Savolainen, a lady from the Phillipines who is married to a Finn, who spoke about the work being done by a Finnish Agency in the Quant-Tri region. Quang-Tri was a major region of the war waged by America against the Vietnamese and there is still much work in progress in clearing the area of mines and unexploded ammunition.
The achievements of the project were quite impressive but I was not happy to hear one statement in the introduction that in the process of moving to a market economy, co-operatives were being dismantled.
After the talk, I expressed my opinion that there were all sorts of co-operatives and it was the Anand Co-opeative started by Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Dr. Verghese Kurian who revolutionised Milk Production in India, with Operation Flood and the White Revolution, which made India the largest milk producer in the world during the last 50 years.
These are some of the awards bestowed on Jollychayan. Awards for his contribution to the dairy industry through the co-operative system, are not only in India but also overseas:
1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership
1965 Padma Shri
1966 Padma Bhushan (from President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan)
1986 Krishi Ratna Award (by the President of India)
1986 Wateler Peace Prize Award (of Carnegie Foundation )
1989 World Food Prize Laureate
1993 International Person of the Year (by the World Dairy Expo, Madison, Wisconsin, USA)
1999 Padma Vibhushan
The most ridiculous question of the event came from top Oulu politician (Social Democrat) who asked one of the speakers what Finland tax-payers got out of doing this work in the far east. Obviously Liisa Jaakonsaari, who is a former school classmate of Annikki, does not know the meaning of the word "AID" if she is looking for "returns" for Finland out of this work!
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