M. S. Swaminathan

Who is M. S. Swaminathan?

Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan is an Indian geneticist and international administrator, renowned for his leading role in India's "Green Revolution," a program under which high-yield varieties of wheat and rice seedlings were planted in the fields of poor farmers.

Swaminathan is known as "Indian Father of Green Revolution" for his leadership and success in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in India. He is the founder and chairman of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation. His stated vision is to rid the world of hunger and poverty. Swaminathan is an advocate of moving India to sustainable development, especially using environmentally sustainable agriculture, sustainable food security and the preservation of biodiversity, which he calls an "evergreen revolution."

From 1972 to 1979 he was director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He was minister of Agriculture from 1979 to 1980. He served as director general of the International Rice Research Institute and became president of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in 1988.

In 1999, Time magazine placed him in the 'Time 20' list of most influential Asian people of the 20th century.