Virender Lal Chopra (9 August 1936 – 18 April 2020) was an Indian biotechnologist, geneticist, agriculturalist and a director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), known to have contributed to the development of wheat production in India. He was the chancellor of Central University of Kerala, a Chancellor of the Central Agricultural University, Imphal and a member of the Planning Commission of India. An elected fellow of several science academies such as Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, India, European Academy of Sciences and Arts and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), he was a recipient of a number of honors including Borlaug Award, FAO World Food Day Award and Om Prakash Bhasin Award. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1985, for his contributions to agricultural science.
Biography
Virender Lal Chopra was born on 9 August 1936 at Adhwal, a small village in the periphery of Rawal Pindi in West Punjab of the British India to Harbans Lal and Sukhwanti, and moving to Delhi, he did his early schooling at Ramjas School, Delhi. After securing his graduate degree with honours in agricultural science from Central College of Agriculture, Delhi in 1955 and following it up with an associateship at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) during 1955–57, he proceeded to the Institute of Genetics, University of Cologne on a senior Humboldt scholarship. Subsequently, he shifted his base to Edinburgh in 1964 and secured a doctoral degree (PhD) in Genetics from the Institute of Genetics of the University of Edinburgh in 1967, presenting the thesis "Tests for genetic effects of irradiated or chemically treated media in Drosophila and micro-organisms".
Chopra's career took prominence when he became the director of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in 1979 which was his first major position where he was in charge of the planning and management of research in genetics and biotechnology. He stayed at the post for one year before turning to academics as the professor of genetics at the same institution, a post he held till 1985 when he moved to National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology as a Professor of Eminence and the director of the centre. Simultaneously he served as a member of the scientific advisory committee to the Prime Minister of India from 1986 to 1990. He moved to Vietnam in 1990 as the chief technical adviser to the Government of Vietnam on a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) assignment which lasted 15 months. It was during this period, he assisted the Vietnam government in the establishment of the Agriculture Genetics Institute (AGI) in Hanoi. In 1992, the Government of India appointed him a secretary with the responsibility of the director-general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the apex agency in India for agricultural education and research. After his retirement from the ICAR in 1994, he continued his association with the agency as its B. P. Pal National Professor and in 2004, he was appointed as a member of the science council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the largest research entity run on public funding in agriculture in the world. At CGIAR, he served as a member of several committees and boards of the member organizations and as its Regional Representative for Asia. During this period, he was also a member of the now-defunct Planning Commission of India, headed by Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
Chopra died on April 18, 2020, in New Delhi.