K. Kunhikannan
He was a friend and admirer of the humanist Brajendra Nath Seal and the British writer Lionel Curtis who sought a single united world government.
As an agricultural entomologist, he innovated several low-cost techniques for pest management and was a pioneer of classical biological control approaches in India.
He visited Hawaii several times between 1920 and 1921 attending meetings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society[3] and he also served as an Indian delegate (along with Swami Abhedananda) at the First Pan-Pacific Educational Conference from 11–24 August 1921.
[6][7] Kunhikannan was appointed to the board of Mysore University on 23 July 1927, the Vice Chancellor at the time being Sir Brajendra Nath Seal.
[8] When a proposal was made to offer marine biology at the Mysore University, Kunhikannan opposed it on the grounds that students needed to be able to relate to the environment immediately around them and not be far away from it.
After his stay and travels to the United States and through Europe, he wrote a book called The West (1927), admiring some aspects and criticizing some western practices.
He saw, first-hand, the lynching of blacks in the United States which disturbed him greatly and he wrote about the dangers of media control (by William Randolph Hearst in this case) and the fierce individualism that was encouraged by the West.
Keeping with the idea of cost efficiency in control measures against insects, he considered the use of a mesh below manure heaps that allowed coconut beetles (Oryctes) to burrow down as larvae but blocked the emergence of hard-bodied adults.
He examined the effect of mercury vapour[17] on the control of pulse beetles in storage, a system used by Mysore farmers for centuries, and found them to inhibit the development of eggs when used in small containers.
He then found that a layer of sand at least half an inch thick at the top of grains helped in effectively controlling damage at little cost.
[22] Kunhikannan also investigated traditionally used fish-poison plants and identified an alcoholic extract of Mundulea sericea as a treatment of wood against termites.
He called the new South Indian form Coccus colemani "as a mark of gratitude for the valuable scientific training I have received" from Coleman.
[42] A scheme for investigating plants used as fish toxins as potential insecticides was proposed by him for funding to the Imperial Council for Agricultural Research and this was approved in 1935.
To this periodical, he contributed reviews of books on a range of topics including: Kunhikannan died suddenly from a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 47.
