M. S. Swaminathan

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Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (7 August 1925 – 28 September 2023) was an Indian geneticist and plant breeder, administrator and humanitarian who was a global leader of the green revolution. He has been called the main architect of the green revolution in India for his leadership and role in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice. Swaminathan's collaborative scientific efforts with Norman Borlaug, spearheading a mass movement with farmers and other scientists and backed by public policies, saved India and Pakistan from certain famine-like conditions in the 1960s. His leadership as director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines was instrumental in his being awarded the first World Food Prize in 1987, recognized as one of the highest honours in the field of agriculture. The United Nations Environment Programme has called him "the Father of Economic Ecology". He was recently conferred the Bharat Ratna, the highest...

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