The 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

BIOGRAPHY of Moncompu Sambasivan Swaminathan

"The principles of self-reliance, love towards all and community effort were inculcated in me during the first 10 years of my life," MONCOMPU SAMBASIVAN SWAMINATHAN writes. Born on August 7, 1925 in Kumabakonom in Madras State, South India, he was the second son of Surgeon M. K. Sambasivan and Parvathi Thangammal Sambasivan. "I learn’t from my father," he adds, "that the word 'impossible' exists mainly in our minds and that given the requisite will and effort, great tasks can be accomplished."

He recalls how his father, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, took the lead in their area in "burning his foreign clothes," a symbolic act in support of the swedeshi movement which emphasized the use of Indian rather than foreign-made clothes, and handloomed rather than mill-spun cloth. The purpose of swedeshi was to free India from dependence on foreign imports and to protect village industry. His father also led in opening the temples to "untouchables," and in eradicating filariasis in Kumbakonom, an area long infected with the dread disease. The sense of service to one's fellowman was thus ingrained in him early.

After his father's death when he was 11 young SWAMINATHAN was looked after by his uncle, M. K. Narayanaswami, a radiologist. He attended the local high school and later the Catholic Little Flower High School in Kumbakonom, from which he graduated at age 15. He went on to get his Bachelor of Science in Zoology from the University of Travancore (now Kerala University) in 1944. At that point he decided to take up the study of agriculture.

He had spent his holidays in the "rice bowls" of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and yet had been struck by the paucity of the grain yield and the poverty of the farmers. In contrast he noticed that plantation crops—coffee, rubber, tea—produced well in the same soils and conditions. His observations awakened his interest in agricultural problems and he read widely, discovering that yields in India were very low compared to those of other countries. "The interaction between heredity and environment fascinated me," he later said, "hence in 1944 I decided to take to agricultural education, and since then I have developed what my wife, Mina, says is a 'single track mind,' concerned with problems of improving agricultural productivity and agrarian prosperity."

He received a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Madras in 1947 and did postgraduate work at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), from which he received an Associate Diploma (with high distinction) in Cytogenetics two years later. He passed the Indian Administrative Service examination and was offered a post in the Indian Police Service and at the same time was advised that he was the recipient of a United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) fellowship to study abroad. Choosing to pursue his studies rather than accept a government position he was, from 1949 to 1950, a UNESCO Fellow at the Institute of Genetics of the Agricultural University of Wageningen, the Netherlands. From there he proceeded to Cambridge, England, where he received a Doctorate of Philosophy in 1952 for his thesis Species Differentiation and Nature of Polyploidy in Tuber-Bearing Solanum Species. It presented an "entirely fresh concept of the relationships within the tuber-bearing Solanums [potatoes]."

To broaden his experience before returning home he accepted an appointment as Research Associate in Genetics at the University of Wisconsin in the United States, November 1952 to January 1954. There he continued his work on the potato, publishing nine papers during the next three years in American and European journals based on the results of his experiments on the Solanum species.

Back in India he took a position as Assistant Botanist at the Central Rice Research Institute in Cuttack, Orissa State, where he worked at crossing japonica and indica varieties of rice in an effort to produce a highyield strain. Six months later he transferred to the IARI in New Delhi where he had done his first postgraduate work. Beginning as Assistant Cytogeneticist, he served as Cytogeneticist (1956) and Head of the Botany Division (1961) before being appointed, in July 1966, as Director of the Institute.

Agriculture has employed, employs and will have to continue to employ about 70 percent of India's population. Until a gift of 630,000 was made by U.S. philanthropist Henry Phipps in 1905 there was no important research institute devoted to the scientific study of this major aspect of Indian life. That year the Pusa Institute, to become the IARI, was founded in the village of Pusa in northern Bihar State. The Institute had five sections: agriculture and cattle breeding, chemistry, economic botany, entomology and mycology. Pioneering research work was done in these fields and at this location until, as a result of the disastrous 1934 Bihar earthquake, the Institute was relocated in 1936 in New Delhi where it now occupies 1,250 acres.

The Institute, which SWAMINATHAN heads, is under the Central Government Ministry of Food and Agriculture. It has a teaching staff of 265 and consists of 17 divisions. There are also a number of Institute-related regional stations and substations in other parts of the country which are devoted specifically to research on wheat, cotton, oilseeds and vegetable crops; seed production; plant introduction, and viruses. There are also three soil correlation centers. In 1958 the IARI was recognized as a university and now offers both graduate and postgraduate degrees. It cooperates on research projects with various state, national and international agencies and foundations, e.g., departments of agriculture of the various Indian states, the Central Rice Research Institute at Cuttack, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. SWAMINATHAN has played a major role in the development of the IARI into one of the world's leading agricultural research and educational institutions.

Research and teaching facilities and modern laboratory equipment at IARI attract students from all over the world, but especially from South and Southeast Asia. It has the largest agricultural library in India with 200,000 books and 1,500 scientific journals, Indian and foreign. Its collection of over 22,000 insect specimens constitutes a valuable asset for work in systematic entomology—making possible the identification of pests, their parasites and their predators. It also has over 27,000 specimens of fungi which form the basis for the study of fungoidal plant diseases and the possibility of their control. The Indian Type Culture Collection of Microorganisms is the largest in the country. The germ plasm bank which has been built up by IARI for wheat, maize, sorghum and millet is utilized by scientists worldwide.

A Radiotracer Laboratory was established which includes "a Gamma Garden with 200-curie source and a gamma cell with a 2,000 curie source of radioactive cobalt 60." This is used in the program of mutation breeding by researchers from all parts of India. In 1968 a Nuclear Research Laboratory to expand this work was set up with assistance from the United Nations Development Program Special Fund.

IARI also has an excellent collection of ornamental plants, especially roses which number nearly 1,000, and it maintains a herd of Sahiwal and Freisian milk cows for milk-yield testing.

The major functions of the Institute are: "1) fundamental and applied research in agricultural science and related disciplines, 2) postgraduate instruction leading to the MSc and PhD degrees and 3) advisory and extension work." Research has been expanded to include not only the study of plants and factors necessary for their optimum growth, but improvement of storage techniques, development of soil test kits for use by farmers and designing improved but simple agricultural implements.

Education has been a main function of the Institute since its founding. SWAMINATHAN has refined the educational goals to "relevance" to the Indian economy and "excellence." Postgraduate training is based upon the credit-course system of American universities, SWAMINATHAN writes: "research, teaching and extension are fully integrated and. . .instruction is broadbased so as to give the student a mastery not only in his major field of specialization but also in supporting minor fields." More than 2,000 applications a year are received but only 150 applicants are accepted. Preference has always been given to nominees of state agricultural universities. Courses are tailored to meet student requirements as well as community needs.

Between 1958 and 1970 the IARI graduated more than 720 Masters of Science and 600 Doctors of Philosophy. Over 50 of these took their degrees under SWAMINATHAN. His impact as an educator is felt throughout India and in other parts of the world. Those trained in the "SWAMINATHAN school of radiation genetics and plant breeding" are themselves beginning to make meaningful contributions.

"The ultimate aim for all agricultural research," SWAMINATHAN states, "is to bring the results of research within the reach of the cultivator." This is accomplished at IARI by advisory services, by supplying farmers with pure seeds of improved crop varieties, and by operating an extensive demonstration cultivation scheme in a number of villages around Delhi. One village has become a "seed village" that can supply seed to the whole state.

In 1964 SWAMTNATHAN helped to develop the National Demonstration Program and in 1965 the High Yielding Varieties Program. By 1967 there were 2,000 demonstration farms laid out by scientists throughout the country to show the farmer new varieties, new yields and new techniques. SWAMINATHAN feels that these farms also educate state agriculture extension workers and are good training ground for agriculture students who should be required to work on them as a prerequisite to a degree. This extension program has a feedback advantage as well, shortening the time between recognizing a problem in the field and solving it in the laboratory.

SWAMINATHAN not only administers this complex university-research center, but is himself actively engaged in highly original genetic research, as a cursory glance at his more than 250 published papers will show. His training and major work is in cytogenetics, a branch of biology that deals with both cytology—the study of the variation of organisms by structure, function, multiplication, pathology and life history of the cells—and genetics, i.e. heredity, and the way to improve plant qualities by manipulating genes to redesign the plant structure. He has pursued the study of chromosome breakage and induced gene mutation—by means of X-ray; gamma ray; alpha ray; radio-active sulphur, phosphorus and cobalt; fast and thermal neutrons; ultra violet rays; or chemical agents such as ethyl methane sulphonate, nitrogen mustard and vegetable oils—in seeking to restructure major Indian food plants to increase both total yield and consumer quality.

Genes are located on chromosomes—rod-like bodies occurring in the nucleus of cells—and are transmitted from parents to progeny in a predictable fashion. Mutations in genes occur in nature at the rate of approximately one-to-one million and only a few are useful to breeders. Until 1927 man had to hope that he would happen on the million-to-one mutation that would be of help. In that year two American geneticists established the science of radiation genetics by using X-rays to induce mutation. Since World War II it has been possible to do intensive genetic manipulation with the use of atomic and nuclear technology. Breeders can now create "gene banks" and develop numerous new gene combinations according to plan and need. Furthering the possibilities of gene manipulation is the recent work of SWAMINATHAN in "purposeful direction."

In August 1968 he announced at the Tenth International Congress of Genetics in Tokyo that pulse treatments with potent chemical mutagens at different stages in chromosome development in the replication of DNA (the nucleic acids that are the molecular basis of heredity) could help alter the mutation spectrum. His work is based "on the principle that DNA synthesis along a chromosome is not synchronous, thereby an opportunity exists for affecting different parts of the chromosome differently through short duration treatments."

The ability to breed new "management-responsive plant types" has given agriculture a chance to catch up with the world-wide population boom since World War II. Modern science and international aid had prompted even the most underdeveloped nations to practice "death control" before they upgraded their economies or inaugurated "birth control,' The result was tremendous pressure upon food supply. Concerned Western thinkers (e.g. Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama; and Paul and William Paddock, Famine Nineteen Seventy-Five!) predicted that India, in particular, would be facing massive starvation in the 1970s. After failure of monsoon rains in 1965 and 1966 with resultant severe drought, widespread famine was only alleviated by huge importations of aid grains. That predicted massive starvation did not recur in the 1970s, and that a revolution has taken place in Indian agriculture and in the Indian farmer's outlook, have been largely the result of the National Demonstration Program (1964-65) and the High Yielding Varieties Program (1965-66) of the IARI. SWAMINATHAN was the principal scientific architect of these programs and his role in generating a positive outlook among political and administrative leaders has been critical.

Rice is the main food crop of India, with planted to that crop today; wheat production about 34 million hectares is about half that of rice. Although food-grain production in India increased from 50 million tons in 1948 to 82 million by 1964, this was primarily due to an increase in land under cultivation, not in yield per hectare, and land opened for cultivation was chiefly marginal or forest land. These lands soon showed signs of soil erosion and nutrient depletion, potentially increasing the problem of increased food production rather than solving it.

The first attempts to improve grain yield were with rice; simple demonstration farms were set up by the government around the country to try to persuade farmers to use fertilizer. The farmers proved reluctant even when the fertilizer was supplied free, and popular wisdom blamed "peasant conservatism." The data produced from these trial farms, however, showed that neither the addition of fertilizer nor proper irrigation made a significant yield difference. Since the japonica variety of rice grown in Japan produced a yield four times greater than the indica grown in India, attempts were then to make a cross of the two varieties that would utilize fertilizer more efficiently. SWAMINATHAN worked on this project at the Rice Institute in Cuttack. This approach also by and large failed.

SWAMINATHAN began the study of wheat when he came to IARI in 1954, publishing a paper on the "Effect of Fast Neutron Radiation on Cinkorn Emmer and Bread Wheats," as early as 1956. Indian wheat, he found, like rice, did not respond favorably to the addition of fertilizer and water. In both cases tall stalks made the plants susceptible to lodging (falling), even under normal growing conditions. The addition of fertilizer and water simply increased the height of the stalk and its inclination to lodge, and encouraged the viruses and fungi praying on it. Since an important consequence of lodging is the delayed maturity of the grain, and in the semi-desert conditions of the major wheat farming areas of North India maturity is always a race with the approach of the plant-searing heat, and soil and atmospheric drought of April, the development of a nonlodging variety of wheat seemed essential for increased yield.

SWAMINATHAN became convinced that local grain varieties, developed over the centuries by natural selection, had adapted to survival under poor soil and climatic conditions, and were structurally and physiologically unable to produce an improved yield. In 1961, as Head of the Plant Breeding Department of IARI, he wrote the government that the answer to yield breakthrough was the introduction of dwarf varieties of grains. With a short, strong stalk, plants would resist lodging, nutrients would be used in seed production rather than in plant growth, and the flat sturdy leaves of the dwarf would maximize photosynthesis and speed maturity. Dwarfs could also be planted closer together, minimizing weed growth and increasing moisture retention.

In 1963, with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, SWAMINATHAN effected the introduction into India of breeding samples of dwarf wheats which had been developed in Mexico by Dr. Norman Borlaug and his associates. These were based on the dwarf genes of the Norin wheat discovered in Hokkaido, Japan in 1946 and developed in the United States at the state agricultural college in Pullman, Washington, from where they were made available to the International Center for Maize and Wheat Research (CIMMYT) in Mexico. During 1963-64 these Mexican wheats were studied at the Institute, at stations in six Indian states and by scientists at the agricultural universities at Ludhiana and Pantnagar. Bulk quantities of four commercial Mexican dwarf wheats were also imported for yield evaluation. During 1964-65 further and more extensive studies were made at IARI, and the National Demonstration Program was begun under SWAMINATHAN’s supervision.

Believing that the purpose of research was to pass on the benefits to the farmer at the earliest possible moment, SWAMINATHAN designed a program to show villagers the yield possibility of these new varieties by growing them in farmers' fields. He insisted demonstration crops be planted in the poorest farmers' fields, with no controlled plots for comparison. The farmer, he reasoned, knows what he has traditionally harvested and the scientist knows what can be grown under optimum conditions. The demonstration was to show what an ordinary farmer could grow given these new grains and production techniques. The first results showed a tripling of yield.

As a result of the Program two varieties, Lerma Rojo 64A and Sonora 64 were approved by the Central Variety Release Committee of the Government of India for cultivation in irrigated wheat districts. Some 250 tons of these two varieties were planted in 1965 and 18,000 tons in 1966. By 1968 over 200,000 hectares were planted to these new dwarf wheats and the varieties that had been developed by selection from the advanced breeding material from Mexico. Pusa Lerma and Sharbati Sonora, two-gene dwarfs, were developed from Lerma Rojo and Sonora 64 by mutation breeding when farmers objected that the latter's red grain had a low market value.

The four-pronged strategy consisting of a) direct introduction, b) selection from advanced breeding material, c) hybridization and d) mutation breeding, devised by SWAMINATHAN, had speedy impact. In 1968-69 wheat production went up to 19.5 million tons from 12 million tons in 1964-65. The Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding credits SWAMINATHAN with "overcoming the apparent ceiling to wheat yields in the country" by grasping the potentialities of the dwarf genes and putting his ideas into effect.

A great advantage in wheat development in India, SWAMINATHAN has written, is that the wheat program began after the country had embarked upon basic scientific development. The rice program, begun earlier, has not had as successful a breakthrough as wheat. On the other hand the need to improve rice yield was not as pressing since India is normally self-sufficient in this crop. Thus, any increase in rice yield per hectare, SWAMINATHAN comments, must be accompanied by a decrease in the total number of hectares planted if a surplus is not to occur. Since there are as yet insufficient storage facilities, a surplus would result in a price drop and financial ruin for the farmers. However, SWAMINATHAN sees a time when India will have solved storage and pricing problems, as well as have achieved a yield breakthrough and will export rice to other parts of Asia. For this purpose SWAMINATHAN initiated a program of developing a dwarf rice variety with fine grains.

Wheat is another matter; India has had a chronic wheat deficiency. For many years India was a major wheat importer under U.S. Public Law 480. In 1965-66, as a result of drought—which in most wheat areas occurs on the average of every three years—India imported about 10 million tons per year.

Along with developing improved wheat varieties with increased yield and disease and pest resistance, SWAMINATHAN has been involved in promoting multicropping and scientific crop rotation. The most important reason for multiple cropping is that, since most available land is already under cultivation, there are only two ways to increase farm production and farm income: increased yield per crop and crops per hectare. Or as SWAMINATHAN puts it, "increased yield per day." Moreover, India must change its emphasis from "agriculture planning for self-sufficiency" to "agriculture planning for economic growth and agrarian prosperity." Agriculture must be the underpinning of the economy as it has been on Taiwan. "It is still not fully realized," SWAMINATHAN writes, "that the serious poverty, unemployment and underemployment problems facing India can be overcome only through the scientific exploitation of the plant and animal wealth of the country and that agricultural development is not merely a tool for achieving food self-sufficiency but is the most feasible and speedy method of economic growth." India, he continues, must plan to support 70 percent of her population and underwrite the cost of industrialization by exporting food to other parts of the world not as favorably endowed with land and climate: "Export of agricultural produce is like exporting sunlight, since agriculture is the most important solar energy harvesting enterprise in the world and India is blessed with abundant sunshine."

The best way to increase both agricultural employment and agricultural income, SWAMINATHAN believes, is by the continuous use of land, the number of plantings dependent only upon the availability of water. Two hectares of irrigated land, he estimates, will have to provide a reasonable income and continuous employment for over five persons for the foreseeable future. It is necessary, therefore to "delink agricultural fortunes from the monsoon."

Multiple cropping is a possibility unique to the tropics and subtropics, since only these geographic areas have sufficient heat units, sunlight and water. Studies have found that "no other country the size of India has so much irrigation potential available for raising crops," SWAMINATHAN has written. The only areas lacking that potential are the dry-farming regions. Even there IARI is experimenting with the possibility of a second crop by developing short-growth-duration wheat and experimenting with ridge-furrow planting.

In irrigated wheat regions IARI has been experimenting with possible multiple crop combinations since 1966-67. One workable mix is wheat-mung bean (a legume that puts nutrients back into the soil)-maizepotato. There are a number of variables that must be considered in multiple cropping however: crop, soil, climate, topography, water and the input mobilization potential of the farmers, plus the problems of pests and diseases, credit, storage and pricing. One cannot develop generalized know-how for agriculture as for industry. Each area—often each village—must be treated differently.

IARI studies have shown that in irrigated wheat areas 10 tons of crop per hectare per year are possible with relay cropping, but improved management technology must go with improved stock to achieve these high yields. Studies on tillage show that four crops will grow better on 4-5 ploughings than one crop with the traditional 15-20 ploughings. Addition of nitrogen and phosphorus is a must on most of India's soils, and introduction of the nodule bacteria Rhizobium will allow leguminous plants to fix more nitrogen. Water management is important—including amount, time of application and use of raised plant beds which can effect 35-40 percent saving of water and allow simultaneous double cropping if desired— and disease and pest control. Major grain loss occurs in post-harvest storage; studies show that low moisture, temperature and oxygen in storage are essential for maximum retrieval. Pricing is also important and the farmer must learn to figure profit on "net return per unit area" not on gross return of yield.

Many of these findings are the result of studies of the past 30 years, but the IARI, under the leadership of SWAMINATHAN, has realized the necessity for presenting them as an integrated package, showing the farmer their essential interrelationship and convincing him of the need for proper input from all to achieve optimum results. In his position as Director of IARI, SWAMINATHAN has lent his scientific talents, his administrative abilities, his capacity to convince political leaders and his power as a widely respected writer, speaker and teacher to make sure that all necessary ingredients are in the "package" before the farmer is encouraged "to buy."

Believing as he does that desired advances in agriculture can come about only if agriculture is treated as a whole, SWAMINATHAN has not only been a motivating force in the establishment of various multidisciplinary efforts, but he has written widely in the general field of agronomy for both agriculturalist and layman. For example, in 1956 in two articles in Indian Farmer he discussed the new vistas in plant production, and in 1967 he wrote for Farmer and Parliament and the Indian Journal of Public Administration on "New Crop Varieties and New Yield Possibilities, " and "Integration and Application of Agricultural Research, Education and Extension," respectively.

Besides attempting to educate agricultural experts and government officials, SWAMINATHAN is very concerned about educating the individual farmer. He urges that government exploit mass communication media to inform the farmer as to both new yield and crop possibilities and attitudinal changes that must accompany the new technology. All-India Radio with the help of IARI put on an experimental agriculture-education television program that reached 72 villages in Delhi State in 1967. It proved "a powerful tool for dissemination of knowledge." Farmers, not surprisingly, retained more of what was presented through television than they did through radio. As a result SWAMINATHAN is urging that a satellite television system, with ground stations capable of covering all the villages in the country, be installed as soon as possible.

SWAMINATHAN also believes in educating the farmer to make his own decisions. He does not support either coercing or coddling the farmer. "I personally feel," he wrote in 1964, "that psychologically, the subsidy given to the farmer does more harm than good. It takes away his initiative. The farmer may be provided with seed, fertilizers, improved implements, etc. against full credit rather than at subsidized rates." This should "yield better results as the farmer tends to appreciate and use more efficiently the seeds and fertilizers he has purchased at good price." He therefore urges the government to make farm credit available as quickly and as broadly as possible.

SWAMINATHAN elaborated on this basic premise when he was asked to deliver the prestigious Zakir Hussain Memorial Lectures in September 1970. Psychologists, he said, believe that within each of us there dwells a captive spirit struggling to find fulfillment, and each has the need to succeed by his own efforts. Therefore we should work with, rather than work for, others. The latter situation produces an expectation of gratitude on the one hand and resentment at having to be obliged on the other.

He holds that agriculture students should participate in agricultural projects as part of their university training, and emphasizes that they should go into a village, not as social workers but as co-participants. Such experience should be required for graduation, not only in agriculture, but in all faculties. Students could be integrated into government projects, paid a modest salary and engage in the day-to-day work.

Such training would also be exceedingly beneficial in giving youth the "experience and self-confidence necessary for embarking upon a career of self-employment." The need to know how to be self-employed is necessary, SWAMINATHAN points out, because of the increasing dearth of jobs for university graduates. By 1973, he estimates, over 4,600 postgraduates in agriculture will be surplus. Thus in trying to find ways students can employ themselves after graduation, SWAMINATHAN has announced that the IARI is no longer taking out patents on agricultural machinery designed by the Institute. On the contrary, it will supply the drawings to anyone wanting to scare a small business by manufacturing them.

As an educator SWAMINATHAN also believes thee there should be a restructuring of the educational system. Schools, especially in the villages should become "learning situations," with an emphasis on Basic Education as propounded by John Dewey, Zakir Hussain and Gandhi, and the student should be educated to understand, work in, and if necessary be able to change, his environment and society.

Allied with his concern about education is his concern about the physical development of upcoming generations. Recent research, he points out, "has revealed a link between malnutrition and retarded physical and mental development." The first years of a child's life are crucial because the brain achieves 80 to 90 percent of its weight in the first four years. If the child doesn’t get sufficient calories and protein during this growth period he will suffer, what SWAMINATHAN calls, "intellectual dwarfism." This is potentially a major problem for developing countries, with long-term implications: a country with a large portion of its population so afflicted would have difficulty competing in the world. A factor exacerbating the problem for India is rigidity of food habits. SWAMINATHAN therefore has been an advocate of diversification in food habits. He feels that a nutritional dimension should be added to land use planning and crop breeding.

SWAMINATHAN’s international reputation rests not only on work done on major grain crops, but on other crops as well. He is credited with a scientific breakthrough in successfully crossing two Solanum species in the early 195Os. He repeated this success when he crossed two jute-yielding species, Corchorus olitorius and c. capsularia, in the next decade: it was "the dream of all chose interested in jute improvement since the beginning of this century." He has also worked on cotton.

SWAMINATHAN, and chose associated with him in radiation genetics at IARI, were pioneers in studying the indirect effects of radiation. Starting with planes, and then working with fruit flies, they found that frequency of spontaneous mutation is increased when either are fed irradiated food. These studies have been confirmed by other scientists and today genetic criteria are required in assessing the wholesomeness to man and animal of irradiated food.

SWAMINATHAN is a member of, and has been honored by, many learned societies. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding; an Honorary Member of the Swedish Seed Association, Svalof; a Member of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). He was Vice-President of the Ninth International Congress of Genetics in 1963 and the University Grants Commission of India chose him as the National Lecturer for 1971.

SWAMINATHAN was honored with the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for his contributions in the field of biological sciences in 1961. The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences presented him with the Mendel Centenary Award in 1965, and in that same year he received the Birbal Sahni Award from the Indian Botanical Society and the Indian Journal of Genetics Medal. He was honored by the Government of India in 1967 with the Padma Shri Decoration and in 1970 he received an Honorary Doctorate from Sardar Patel University. The award he most appreciates, however, is a medal from the farmers of Delhi State in recognition of "his signal service to them for improving their agricultural practices."

SWAMINATHAN is one of the editors of Radiation Botany published by Pergamon Press, and is chief editor of the Journal of the Post-Graduate School of IARI. He has lectured abroad at international scientific conferences every year but one since 1957 when he first addressed the UNESCO Conference in Paris on "The Use of Radioisotopes in Scientific Research." He was a speaker at the Second U.N. Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva in 1958. Over the years he has been invited to give a lecture or a series of lectures in Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, the USSR, Australia, the Philippines, Austria and the United States, and has given major addresses at IAEA conferences in 1960, 1963, 1964 and 1965. He gave a major address at the International Conference of Genetics in 1963 and again in 1968.

Despite his professional stature, SWAMINATHAN has an easy approachability and a becoming humility. National Investment and Finance which chose him as "Man of the Week" in February 1971, said of him: "He brings to bear on his work a missionary zeal which is infectious and a sense of dedication which is inspiring. It is said, knowledge is proud that it knows so much, wisdom is humble that it knows no more. Dr. SWAMINATHAN typifies that type of wisdom of the ancient without fanfare or trumpets. He radiates cheer, hope and self-confidence."

SWAMINATHAN himself pays tribute to the strength and support he derives from his wife. "She is a person with an unique combination of qualities. Her sense of values and her faith that the future of India depends upon the education and nutrition of children have provided much of the stimulus for my work. Her humanism and dislike of material values have strengthened my personal convictions and goals."

Mina Bhoothalingam, whom he married in 1955, comes from a distinguished Madrasi family. Her father is head of the National Council of Applied Economic Research and her mother is a well-known writer and lecturer on Hindu philosophy and architecture. Mrs. Swaminathan has a Master in Economics from Cambridge and worked as a Planning Officer in the Planning Commission before their marriage. She returned to the university to earn a Bachelor of Education and has since taught at St. Thomas' Girls Higher Secondary School in New Delhi and is presently running the Nehru Experimental Center, a preschool. She also writes and lectures on the use of drama as a medium of education. The SWAMINATHANS share an interest in music, both Indian and Western, and a pride in their three daughters, aged 8, 10 and 12.

SWAMTNATHAN’s personal and scientific optimism and enthusiasm, with which he infects all those with whom he comes in contact, is expressed in an article he wrote for Indian Agricultural News Digest (1969) where he said: "That plants love India is clear from our having more number of plant species than countries with a much larger land area, such as the United States and USSR. If we will reciprocate this love and attend to the needs of plants, crop plants will take us on the path of abundance of food, full employment, mental happiness and total freedom."

September 1971
Manila

REFERENCES:

Abel, Martin. "Differential Rates of Growth in Rural Incomes Resulting from Specific Government Policies like the New Agricultural Strategy." Paper presented at the Seminar on Income Distribution in India Sponsored by the Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, February 25-26, 1971. (Mimeographed.)

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Five Years of Research on Dwarf Wheats. New Delhi: Indian Agricultural Research Institute. 1968.

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Swaminathan, M. S. "Agricultural Revolution in India by Scientific Approach," Science Resources Letter. New Delhi. April 1969.

______. "An Action Plan for Ending the Divorce Between Intellect and Labour in Education and Rural Development," Greenpath (Magazine of the Post-Graduate School Student's Union, IARI). New Delhi. December 1970.

______. "Agricultural Transformation and Opportunities for a Learning Revolution." Paper presented at the Dr. Zakir Hussain Memorial Lectures, University of Delhi, September 4-5, 1970. 24p. (Mimeographed.)

______. "Agriculture As An Instrument of Economic Prosperity," Everyday Science. Chandigarh: Punjab University. Department of Biophysics. Vol. 14. 1969.

______. "Beyond the Green Revolution," Greenpath (Magazine of the Post-Graduate School Student's Union, IARI). New Delhi. August 1969.

______. "India's Agricultural Capabilities." Presentation made to Group Discussion. Transcript. Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. Manila. September 1, 1971.

______. New Hope for Dry Land Farmers. N.d. 5p. (Mimeographed.)

______. Personal account. (Handwritten.)

______. Recent Research at the Indian Agricultural Institute. Report presented to the Tenth Convocation of the IARI. 1970. 11p. (Mimeographed.)

______. "Role of Agricultural Extension," Science in India's Future. New Delhi: Press Institute of India. 1969.

______. "Science and Agricultural Progress," Indian Agricultural News Digest. Trivandrum, Kerala State, India. 1969.

______. "Transforming Farm Breakthrough into a Revolution," University News. Saskatoon, Canada. October 1970.

______. and N. G. P. Rao. "An Integrated Approach for Increasing and Stabilizing Agriculture Production under Dry Farming," World Science News". New Delhi. February 1970, p.5-8

______. et al. "Scientific Multiple Cropping," World Science News. New Delhi. July 1970, p.9-22.

Swaminathan, Mina S. "The Educated Indian Woman—Between Tradition and Modernity," Today; Magazine of the YWCA of India. New Delhi. Winter, 1970-71.

"World-Experience Integral Part of Education," Statesman. New Delhi. September 1970.

World Science News . New Delhi. February 1968, p.9-12, 21; March 1969, p.7-11; January 1971, p.25-27; March 1971, p.17-22, 48.

Yojana. New Delhi. November 12, 1961, p.5-7, 19; January 26, 1964, p.33, 59; February 14, 1965, p.12-13, 26; April 25, 1965, p.2-5; May 1, 1966, p.2-4, 24; October 15, 1967, p.9-10; April 14, 1968, p.2-5; January 26, 1970, p.23-25.

Interviews with and letters from colleagues of M. S. Swaminathan at IARI and others in the field of scientific agriculture.