The outstanding original contributions of Prof. Chittaranjan Kole to agricultural science and plant biotechnology are well-acclaimed internationally for which he is regarded as “The Father of Plant Genomics in India” and “The Father of Agri-Nanotechnology in the World”. His science leadership at the global level as the President of the International Climate Resilient Crop Genomics Consortium and the International Phytomedomics and Nutriomics Consortium for about 15 years and the President of the Genome India International for the last 20 years is enormous.
The services of this multifaceted personality to agriculture and rural development as the Chairman of the Prof. chittaranjan Kole Foundation for Science and Society and as the Chief mentor of the Green World farmers’ Forum for Education and Development are discussed even in rural households in West Bengal. Today we highlight another facet of this living legend as an editor of text books and reference books on science and technology.
The number of books edited by Prof. Kole has recently touched the 200 mark – a record by itself. These books are focused primarily on plant genome elucidation and designing - biotechnology in a broad sense. The topics basically include molecular genetics & breeding; genomics and genomics-aided breeding; genetic engineering and nanotechnology - with the ultimate goal of addressing food, health, nutrition, energy and environment (FHNEE) security, term coined by him only.
These books have been published by the three leading publishers of the world including Springer Verlag (now Springer Nature, 147 books), Taylor & Francis (Science Publishers & CRC Press included, 43 books); and Wiley-Blackwell (10 books). Most of these books were published under 15 book series, one of them on ‘Compendium of Plant Genomes’ published by Springer Nature contained as many as 83 books. He has successfully identified, guided and monitored 8744 reputed scientists from 105 countries to contribute for these books with their scholarly deliberations through over 2617 chapters.
Prof. Kole and his colleagues have also authored many chapters for these books. Legendary scientists such as the Nobel Laureate Prof. Werner Arber; World Food Laureate Prof. MS Swaminathan; the Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, USA Prof. Ronald L. Phillips and the Fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Canada and many others penned Foreword for some of his books.
Prof. Kole says that he started initially to fill the gap of quality reference books for teaching in November 2003, but it became a passion for him that kept him engaged for nearly 18 hours a day still now mainly for the urge for learning about what is happening in other species and fields and share them among the academic fraternity.
Many legendary scientists including seven Nobel Laureates, Profs. Arthur Kornberg, Norman Borlaug, Werner Arber, Phillip Sharp, Gunter Blobel, Lee Hartwell, Roger Kornberg, and two World Food Prize Laureates, Prof. M. S. Swaminathan and Prof. G. S. Khush, have profusely appreciated this academic endeavor.
Prof. Arthur Kornberg, Nobel laureate in 1959 for medicine wrote to “Dear Prof. Kole, all of us working on biology and chemistry will be in your debt for the “Series of Genomics”. Nobel Laureate in Peace in 1970, Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, the Father of Green Revolution, wrote to Prof. Kole that “May all Ph.D.s, future scientists and students that are devoted to agriculture get an inspiration as it refers to your work or future work from the pages of this important book.”
Prof. Phillip Allen Sharp, Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1993 wrote about Prof. Kole’s books, “The history of a billion years is recorded in these genomes, most of the text for the next billion years is contained in these genomes. Read and enjoy!” Prof. Roger D. Kornberg, Nobel laureate in Chemistry in 2006 wrote to Prime Minister of India, “In the academic area, Prof. Kole is uniquely capable and accomplished, with publication of as many as 130 books on plant genomics and biotechnology benefitting enormous number of students, teachers and scientists all around the world.”
Bharat Ratna Prof. MS Swaminathan emailed Prof. Kole, “Dear Chitta, Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am so happy that you have completed editing the series on Genome Mapping and Molecular Breeding in Plants for Springer. I congratulate and thank you on this very significant contribution. You are a role model for all of us.”
In 2020, Prof. Kole presented one set of his 100 books to the Prime Minister of India. After just a few days, Prime Minister was kind enough to call Prof. Kole over phone himself and highly appreciated Prof. Kole’s academic contributions and service to the nation!
