M. S. Swaminathan

Dr. Swaminathan is married to Mrs Mina Swaminathan since 11 April, 1955. The couple has three daughters together.

Dr. Swaminathan was born on 7 August, 1925 in Kumbakonam, Madras Presidency, to Dr. M.K. Sambasivan and Parvati Thangammal Sambasivan . His father was a surgeon and social reformer.

He lost his father at the age of 11 and thereafter he was brought up by his uncle, M. K. Narayanaswami who was a radiologist. He studied at Little Flower High School in Kumbakonom and later at Maharajas College in Trivandrum. He graduated in 1944 with a degree in zoology.

The Bengal famine of 1943 motivated him to pursue a career in agricultural sciences. Hence, he enrolled in Madras Agricultural College and completed his B.Sc. in Agricultural Science.

In 1947, he joined the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi and completed his post-graduation in genetics and plant breeding in 1949. He received a UNESCO Fellowship and went to Wageningen Agricultural University, Institute of Genetics in the Netherlands. There, he continued his IARI research on potato genetics and was successful in standardising procedures for transferring genes from a wide range of wild species of Solanum to the cultivated potato, Solanum tuberosum.

In 1950, he joined the School of Agriculture, University of Cambridge, U.K. and earned his PhD in 1952 for the thesis titled “Species Differentiation and the Nature of Polyploidy in certain species of the genus Solanum – section Tuberarium.”

He then became a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin, U.S.A. He was offered a full time faculty position at the university; he refused it and returned to India in early 1954.

From 1954 to 66, he was a teacher, researcher and research administrator at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. He became the Director of IARI in 1966 and continued till 1972. Meanwhile, he was also associated with the Central Rice Research Institute at Cuttack, from 1954–72.

Dr. Swaminathan is celebrated as the leader of India’s ‘Green Revolution’ program. He is also a resourceful writer. He has written several research papers and books on Agricultural Science and Biodiversity like ‘Building a National Food Security System, 1981’, ‘Sustainable Agriculture: Towards an Evergreen Revolution, 1996’, etc.