M.S. Swaminathan the Father of the Green Revolution in the country.

Why is that I remembered him today? Coz yours truly shares her birthday with M.S, a living legend. There are few similiarities between the two of us and I am proud that there are. The agrarian connection (my grand parents are into farming and the tradition continues), his childhood influence by the strong character & ethic of his parents, the 'Cambridge' connection( finding the better half is not true though) and finally believing in technological empowerment. One of his famous quotes ' Trust the judgement of farmers' reminds me of my own quote in relation to the BMTC drivers, ' Trust the judgement of BMTC drivers, to create chaos that is'.

Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (Tamil: மான்கொம்பு சாம்பசிவன் சுவாமிநாதன்) is an Indian agriculture scientist, born August 7, 1925, in Kumbakonam, Tamilnadu. He is the second of four sons of a surgeon. His ancestral home is the island village of Monkompu, Alleppey District, Kerala. He is known as "Father of the Green Revolution in India" , for his leadership and success in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in India. He is founder and Chairman of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, leading the 'Evergreen Revolution'.

He is a visionary whose dream is to rid the world of hunger and poverty. Dr. Swaminathan is widely respected for his effective advocacy of sustainable development, especially using environmentally sustainable agriculture, sustainable food security and the preservation of biodiversity. His motto is "if conservation of natural resources goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right." He said, in 2005, that: "I am firmly convinced that hunger and deprivation can be eliminated sooner than most people consider feasible, provided there is a synergy among technology, public policy and social action". He often answers serious questions and requests with the reply: "Why Not?".

He is married to Mina Swaminathan who he met in 1951 while they were both studying at Cambridge. He completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge. Swaminathan’s childhood was happy and secure and he was strongly influenced by the strong moral character and work ethic of his parents.

Swaminathan was strongly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s unique belief in ahimsa or non-violence to achieve Purna swaraj (total freedom) and swadeshi, (self-reliance) on both a personal and national level. During this time of wartime food shortages he chose a career in agriculture and enrolled in Coimbatore Agricultural College where he graduated as class valedictorian with another B.Sc, this time in Agricultural Science. He learned an important lesson while doing field extension work at Coimbatore: Men and women toiling daily in the fields know their jobs better than a scientific expert. "Trust the judgement of farmers."

Professor M S Swaminathan has been acclaimed by TIME magazine as one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of the only three from India, the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. He has been described by the United Nations Environment Programme as "the Father of Economic Ecology" and by Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations, as "a living legend who will go into the annals of history as a world scientist of rare distinction". He was Chairman of the UN Science Advisory Committee set up in 1980 to take follow-up action on the Vienna Plan of Action. He has also served as Independent Chairman of the FAO Council and President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Professor Swaminathan was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1971, the Albert Einstein World Science Award in 1986, and the first World Food Prize in 1987. Professor Swaminathan is a Fellow of many of the leading scientific academies of India and the world, including the Royal Society of London and the U S National Academy of Sciences. He has received 58 honorary doctorate degrees from universities around the world. He currently holds the UNESCO Chair in Ecotechnology at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai (Madras), India.

On a different note, the country lost one of its greatest literary figures, Rabindranath Tagore on this particular day in 1941.

Source: wikipedia and MS Swaminathan Research Foundation.