ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) at Karnal, Haryana is one of the premier Institutes in the dairy sector, which has contributed a lot to the growth of the dairy industry and played a crucial role in India’s development in milk production with its continuous research. Over ninety-six years old NDRI’s lineage goes back to the Imperial Institute for Animal Husbandry & Dairying which was set up in Bangalore in 1923 as a center for dairy education. In its erstwhile form of Imperial Institute in Bangalore, Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and ‘Bharat Ratna’ Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, were imparted training at the Institute in 1927. They wanted to get acquainted with modern methods of cattle management and spent two weeks discussing and learning technicalities and complexities of problems pertaining to cows and buffalos in India. Gandhiji was highly appreciative of the most productive crossbred cow ‘Jill’ of the institute. He held several discussions on the problems of Pinjrapoles, which housed low producing, mostly sterile cows and other dairy stock mainly on humanitarian grounds. Mahatma Gandhi evinced great interest in the work of the Institute and wrote several articles in `Young India’ and `Harijan’ on the importance of dairying and scientific cattle management. Gandhiji’s thinking and views had a significant influence on the political leadership, particularly towards taking key policy decisions during the early post-Independence era, resulting in the formulation of the Key Village Scheme, Gosamvardhana Council, and intensive Cattle Development Programmes. In 1936 it was renamed Imperial Dairy Institute and it was shifted to its present site in Karnal in 1955 and renamed again as National Dairy Research Institute.