[4] The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1985, for his contributions to agricultural science.

[5] Virender Lal Chopra was born on 9 August, 1936 in Adhwal, a small village in the Rawalpindi District of the Punjab Province of British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan), into a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family, to parents Harbans Lal and Sukhwanti.

[6] He stayed at the post for one year before turning to academics as the professor of genetics at the same institution, a post he held till 1985 when he moved to National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology as a Professor of Eminence and the director of the centre.

Simultaneously he served as a member of the scientific advisory committee to the Prime Minister of India from 1986 to 1990.

[citation needed] It was during this period, he assisted the Vietnam government in the establishment of the Agriculture Genetics Institute (AGI) in Hanoi.

After his retirement from the ICAR in 1994, he continued his association with the agency as its B. P. Pal National Professor and in 2004, he was appointed as a member of the science council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the largest research entity run on public funding in agriculture in the world.

[6] During this period, he was also a member of the now-defunct Planning Commission of India,[9] headed by Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

[6] He was a founder member of the Executive council of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and served as its president, secretary and vice-president during different tenures[4] and was associated with the Indian National Science Academy in various capacities.