The Seeds of Green Revolution and White Revolution

 India faced a food shortage and things were in a bad shape when Shastri drew in C. Subramaniam as his food and agriculture minister . Shastri gave full support to his minister in laying the foundations of the Green Revolution , although it was Indira Gandhi who is usually given the credit , as the gains of the new methods came to be seen only after about a decade . But in fact , it was the result of Shastri's initiatives to transform Indian agriculture .

 The Green Revolution involved a threefold thrust technological , economic and organisational . The Indian Council of Agricultural Research was reorganised and , for the first time , a scientist , Dr B.P. Pal , was appointed as its head . M.S. Swaminathan of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute brought the government to an awareness of the new high yielding wheat varieties developed by Norman Borlaug's team in Mexico and how India must launch field demonstrations .

 In the face of opposition from various quarters , including the Congress party , Shastri approved the import of 250 tonnes of wheat seeds in 1965. Later in 1966 some many thousands of tonnes were to be imported . And the Green Revolution in wheat was set in motion , as Indian scientists improved upon these varieties .

 In November 1965 , when C.S. Subramaniam and Orville Freeman , the US agriculture secretary , met in Rome , they signed an accord that put on paper what had already been launched with the support of Shastri .

 As per the accord , India was committed to end imports of food grains by 1971 by investing more in agriculture , irrigation , research , seeds , fertilisers and put in place suitable economic and marketing policies . The Americans , for their part , agreed to send more wheat to India in 1965 and 1966 .

 Incentives to support the new technology were also put in place . The Agricultural Prices Commission ( APC ) and the Food Corporation of India ( FCI ) came into being in January 1965. The National Seeds Corporation and the Central Warehousing Corporation were also set up around this time .

 Shastri was also instrumental in setting in motion the White Revolution - a national campaign to raise the production and supply of milk . On his visit to Anand in Gujarat in October 1964 to inaugurate the Cattle Feed Factory of Amul at Kanjari , he was impressed by the milk cooperative .

 He wished that Verghese Kurien , who was the General Manager of Kaira District Co - operative Milk Producers ' Union Ltd ( Amul ) at the time , would help in creating such cooperatives in other parts of the country so as to improve the conditions of farmers . The National Dairy Development Board ( NDDB ) was established , as a consequence , at Anand in 1965 .

Skip a Meal Idea

 The chronic food shortage in the country was a worrying fact . Also , during the 1965 war with Pakistan , Lyndon B. Johnson , the then President of the U.S. , tried to put pressure on India by warning that if India did not stop the war the U. S. would stop providing wheat to the country under the PL - 480 agreement . ( India needed to import wheat at that time to meet its food grains requirement . ) Shastri refused to be budged . " We may go hungry , but not bow before the US , " he told the Indians .

 Shastri motivated the people to voluntarily give up one meal a week so that food could be saved to be distributed to the people who required it . However , before asking the public to do so he got his family members to first try the system . Surprisingly , the public response was huge with even restaurants closing down on Monday evenings . 

New Institutions and Projects

 Several new institutions were inaugurated during Shastri's tenure . Some of these were the Central Institute of Technology Campus at Tharamani , Chennai , in November 1964 ; the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University at Hyderabad in March 1965 ( renamed Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University in 1996 , and separated into two universities after formation Telangana State , with the university in Telangana being named in July 2014 as Professor Jayashanker Agricultural University ) ; and the National Institute of Technology , Allahabad .

 The Jawahar Dock of the Chennai Port Trust was inaugurated by Shastri , and the construction work of Tuticorin Port was begun in November 1964 .

 The foundation stone for the Upper Krishna Project , of which the Alamatti dam is a part , was laid by Shastri in 1964. ( It was decided by the government to name the Almatti Dam after Lal Bahadur Shastri . )

 It was Shastri who inaugurated the plutonium reprocessing plant at Trombay in 1965. This followed the suggestion by Dr. Homi Bhabha that India should develop nuclear explosives for peaceful purposes , an idea which Shastri endorsed . At the initiative of Homi Bhabha , the nuclear explosive design group Study of Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes ( SNEPP ) was set up .

Foreign Relations

 Shastri made no basic changes in the policy of non - alignment . However , he was deeply conscious that , in the wake of India's war with China ( 1962 ) and the growth of military ties between Pakistan and the People's Republic of China , the Indian government should increase the defence budget of the country . So he tried to modernise the armed forces of India . He also decided that India should build closer ties with the Soviet Union .

 He made overtures to neighbouring states to solve outstanding problems . The Bandarnaike - Shastri accord of 1964 between India and Ceylon ( as Sri Lanka was then called ) was signed by Lal Bahadur Shastri and his Ceylonese counterpart , Sirimavo Bandaranaike .

 Concerned with the status of Indian Tamils in Ceylon , the pact settled for the repatriation of 6,00,000 Indian Tamils to India and Ceylonese citizenship to be granted to 3,75 , 000 Tamils in Ceylon to be accomplished by 1981. Shastri , however , died soon after , and the accord was not fulfilled , and some years later India considered the agreement to have lapsed .

 Burma had undergone a military coup in 1962 , and following that many Indian families settled there had been repatriated by the Burmese government in 1964. Relations between India and Burma were strained .

 However , Shastri made an official visit to Rangoon in December 1965 , and cordial relations were again established between India and the Burmese government under General Ne Win .

 Considering the situation in the subcontinent and the disturbed relations with Pakistan and China , Lal Bahadur Shastri did not hesitate to initiate a nuclear explosives programme . In 1965 , he gave authorisation to the Atomic Energy Commission to work on achieving a nuclear test .

 He faced strong opposition on this issue from his own government and party as well as others , but he did not waver . Unfortunately , Lal Bahadur Shastri died in January 1966 as did the prominent personality on the nuclear science programme in India , Homi J. Bhabha , before the programme could proceed .