Monkombu sambasivan swaminathan biography of donald
Bharat Ratna: Who is MS Swaminathan, father of India's green revolution?
Feb 09, PM IST
MS Swaminathan, who is known as the father of the ‘Green Revolution’ in India, will be honoured with the Bharat Ratna, announced PM Modi.
Late legendary agriculture scientist Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (MS Swaminathan), who is known as the father of the ‘Green Revolution’ in India, will be honoured with the Bharat Ratna, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Friday. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, PM Modi shared a picture with MS Swaminathan and said that he was someone he knew closely, adding that he always valued the late scientist's values and inputs.
“It is a matter of immense joy that the Government of India is conferring the Bharat Ratna on Dr. MS Swaminathan Ji, in recognition of his monumental contributions to our nation in agriculture and farmers’ welfare. He played a pivotal role in helping India achieve self-reliance in agriculture during challenging times and made outstanding efforts towards modernizing Indian agriculture. We also recognise his invaluable work as an innovator and mentor and encouraging learning and research among several students. Dr. Swaminathan’s visionary leadership has not only transformed Indian agriculture but also ensured the nation’s food security and prosperity,” PM Modi wrote on X.
Who was MS Swaminathan?
- Born on August 7, , MS Swaminathan was an agronomist, agricultural scientist, plant geneticist, administrator, and humanitarian. He was known as the ‘father of the Green Revolution’ in India.
- Swaminathan began his career in researching the genetics of potatoes, wheat, rice, and jute. He played a crucial role in developing high-yielding varieties of paddy that helped ensure India’s low-income farmers produced more yield.
- Also known as the ‘father of economic ecology’ by the United Nations Environment Programme, he worked with agriculture ministers including C Subramaniam and Jagjivan Ram during the
In the s, when India barely survived on direct imports, young scientist Swaminathan turned down important positions in academia and government to study agriculture. He bred wheat seeds that helped India triple its annual production in just 15 years.
The Green Revolution came about when hybrid seeds helped Indian farmers bypass the potential ecological damage caused by heavy fertilizer use, the lowering of water tables due to irrigation, and the impact of repeated crop cycles on soil quality. His advocacy of sustainable farming methods has made him a world leader in the field of sustainable food security.
Back in , when Dr Swaminathan was 82, he told Reuters that conservation farming and green technology were crucial for a sustainable “Green Revolution” of the 21st century that could propel India to become a larger food supplier to the world.
Notably, as the Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers, Dr. Swaminathan played a key role in addressing the farmers’ woes. The commission’s recommendations included setting a minimum selling price at least 50% higher than the average cost of the produce and alleviating the challenges faced by farmers.
Dr. Swaminathan has also been involved in various initiatives like focusing on nutrition, internet access in rural India etc. He has also been instrumental in establishing several agricultural institutes in China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran and Cambodia.
The Chennai-based MS Swaminathan Research Foundation posted an article on its Facebook account in November emphasizing Professor Swaminathan's role in ensuring Vietnam's food security after the Vietnam War. According to the article, Professor Swaminathan played a role in establishing the Cuu Long Rice Research Institute (CLRRI), the Southern Crop Research Institute (SOFRI), making Vietnam a major rice exporter as it is today.
His notable contributions earned him several prestigious awards, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award in and the
Father of India's 'green revolution' MS Swaminathan passes away at 98
Agriculture scientistMonkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan has passed away at the age of 98 on Saturday due to illness, reports said on Thursday. Swaminathan is fondly known as the father of India's green revolution, for his role in helping develop a hybrid wheat seed that allowed Indian farmers to dramatically increase yields and shed external reliance for food grains.
Born on August 7, in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, TIME Magazinenamed Swaminathan among one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of the only three from India. Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore are the other two Indians on the list.
Swaminathan's website notes that he served as Director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (), Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Secretary to the Government of India, Department of Agricultural Research and Education (), Principal Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture (), Acting Deputy Chairman and later Member (Science and Agriculture), Planning Commission () and Director General, International Rice Research Institute, the Philippines ().
Back in the s, Swaminathan, reportedly turned down plumb positions in academia and the government to work in agriculture research, helped cross-breed wheat seeds that allowed India to more than treble its annual crop in just 15 years.
“The Green Revolution created a sense of euphoria that we have solved our production problem. Now we have a plateau in production and productivity. We have a problem of under investment in rural infrastructure,” told news agency Reuters back in May
He had worked closely with two agriculture ministers of the country C Subramanian and Jagjivan Ram for the success of the Green Revolution.
The Green Revolution was a programme that paved the way for a huge growth in the production of rice and wheat through the adaptation of chemical–biological technology.
Dr Swaminathan wasA living legend: Swaminathan@90
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It is true that the people who did the actual breeding or selection of the blockbuster varieties in wheat (Kalyan Sona, Sonalika, Arjun, Janak, HD and HD) and rice (IR-8, Jaya and Padma) that farmers planted in a big way aren’t as well known in popular imagination — the likes of VS Mathur, SP Kohli, DS Athwal and, of course, the legendary G.S. Khush. But there isn’t any doubt that the basic strategic vision underpinning the Green Revolution in India — introducing a new genetic strain or ‘plant type’ responsive to increased fertiliser and water application — came from Swaminathan.
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The traditional wheat and rice cultivars were tall and slender. These ‘lodged’ &#; fell flat on the ground — when they grew and their earheads were heavy with well-filled grains produced in response to high fertiliser doses.
In , while at the Central Rice Research Institute at Cuttack after doing a PhD from Cambridge University and a post-doctoral research associateship at the University of Wisconsin, Swaminathan worked on a programme for transferring genes from the relatively non-lodging and fertiliser-responsive ‘Japonica’ rice varieties to indigenous ‘Indica’ races. This approach of breeding for enhanced fertiliser response he extended to wheat after joining the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) at New Delhi later that year. Swaminathan essentially sought a reduction in plant height making it less lodging-prone. His strategy of developing semi-dwarf wheat varieties using mutagenesis — exposing plants to chemicals or radiation to introduce desirable modifications in their DNA — did not, however, work: The lowering of plant heights led to a simultaneous reduction in the size of the grain-bearing panicles or earheads!
But around this time, Swaminathan — who kept abreast of the latest crop research — had learnt of ‘Norin’, a semi-dwarf wheat with large panicles originally bred in Japan and co
- Born on August 7,