from the University of Michigan in 1956. However, her family was an open-minded one and Janaki was encouraged to engage in intellectual pursuits.She developed an early interest in botany. She never married or had children. Venkataraman who had successfully increased the production of sugarcane in the country over the past few years.
She received an honorary LL.D. During the later part of her career, she worked for a while at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay before moving to Madras in 1970 where she was named an Emeritus Scientist at the Centre for Advanced Study in Botany, University of Madras.Janaki Ammal was a pioneer in the field of cytogenetics in India and her contribution to the development of sweeter hybrid varieties of sugarcane has been immense. Janaki Ammal Edavaleth Kakkat was an Indian botanist best remembered for her work on sugarcane and eggplant.
Janaki Ammal, India’s first woman botanist who was instrumental in restructuring Calcutta’s Botanical Survey of India in 1951 on the request of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. After completing her schooling, she moved to Madras where she obtained a Bachelor's degree from Queen Mary's College. She completed her D.Sc in 1931.She returned to India and accepted the post of Professor of Botany at the Maharaja’s College of Science, Trivandrum, in 1932. With a Master’s Degree from Michigan in 1925 and a dream to pursue her doctoral thesis there, Ammal had been on the verge of making history as an Although, as a single woman she was widely criticized among her male peers at Coimbatore. She died of natural causes in February 1984, aged 87.
Ammal’s research in polyploidy helped to understand the nature of polyploidy in sugarcane. But what does imperialism mean in the absence of colonial conquest and direct imperial rule?
She always dressed in Indian attire and had just a few material possessions.
Janaki Ammal’s was an exemplary life, and she had been lucky in her biographer. The institute was created with the aim of improving the Indian sugarcane plant. She even faced caste and gender-based discrimination and decided to move to London where she joined the John Innes Horticultural Institute as an assistant cytologist.
She went on to serve the Government of India in various other capacities over the ensuing years, including heading the Central Botanical Laboratory at Allahabad.During the later part of her career, she worked for a while at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay before moving to Madras in 1970 where she was named an Emeritus Scientist at the Centre for Advanced Study in Botany, University of Madras.Janaki Ammal was a pioneer in the field of cytogenetics in India and her contribution to the development of sweeter hybrid varieties of sugarcane has been immense.
She always dressed in Indian attire and had just a few material possessions.
An expert in cytogenetics (the genetic content and expression of genes in the cell), she conducted research on chromosome numbers and ploidy in a variety of garden plants while she was in England which led to new findings on the evolution of species and varieties. Janaki Ammal was an Indian botanist best remembered for her work on sugarcane and eggplant. For Nirmala James, who has penned books on children’s literature, art and music, writing the biography of a scientist was a different experience.