Randhawa, born on 13 March 1927, secured his doctoral degree from the University of California in 1964. Returning to India, he joined the All India Coordinated Project on Micronutrients in Soils and Plants of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research as a national coordinator in 1967 and served the project till 1977. During this period, he also served Punjab Agricultural University as a professor at the Department of Soils and stayed at the university till 1979, holding positions such as that of a senior professor, head of the department, dean of the College of Agriculture, and the director of research. In 1979, he returned to ICAR as the deputy director general and continued there till his superannuation in 1985 as the director general. In between, he also had a short stint as a government secretary at the Department of Agricultural Research and Education of the Ministry of Agriculture. Randhawa was known to have done research in micro-nutrient management of soil and soil fertility and published several books, articles and monographs. He was a member of the Indian National Science Academy Council, the research advisory council of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and the consultative group of the CGIAR Consortium of International Agricultural Research Center. He presided two science organizations, Indian Society of Soil Sciences and Indian Society of Plant Nutrition and was the vice president of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the vice chair of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad from 1985 to 1990. He delivered several award orations including the inaugural Dr. S. P. Raychaudhuri Memorial Lecture of the Indian Society of Soil Science and the Professor N.R. Dhar Memorial Lecture of the National Academy of Sciences, India. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research awarded him the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award in 1975 and he received the civilian honor of the Padma Bhushan in 1989. A recipient of the National Citizen Award, he was an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. Randhawa died on 26 November 1996, at the age of 69. The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences have instituted an annual award, Dr. N.S.Randhawa Award, in his honor. His contributions have been compiled in an article, Contributions of Dr. N. S. Randhawa to Indian Horticulture, published in Punjab Horticultural Journal.
