Binay Ranjan Sen

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Binay Ranjan Sen was an Indian diplomat (b. Jan. 1, 1898, Dibrugarh, India--d. June 12, 1993, Calcutta, India). He served as Director General (1956-67) of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He drew on his experience as relief commissioner (1942-43) during the Bengal famine of 1943 to build the FAO from a data-gathering bureaucracy into a major force against world hunger.

He studied at the University of Calcutta and at the University of Oxford. Sen joined the Indian Civil Service in Bengal. His work as director general of food for all India (1943-46), convinced him that hunger and malnutrition were crucial issues in the modern world.

He took his concerns to the international stage as a member of India's first delegation to the UN (1947) and as ambassador to the U.S., Italy and Yugoslavia, Japan, and Mexico. He worked on a variety of FAO projects before being named Director General in 1956. In 1960 Sen announced the Freedom from Hunger campaign, which led to the 1963 World Food Congress in Washington, D.C., attended by representatives from more than 100 countries.

Paramahansa Yogananda passed away in a banquet honoring Sen in Los Angeles in 1952.