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Synopsis M S Swaminathan was born in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, India. He received his B Sc degree in Biology from Travancore University, Trivandrum; B Sc in Agriculture from Madras University, and PhD in Agriculture from University of Cambridge. He has had a distinguished research, teaching, and administrative career at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI); Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural research (ICAR); Secretary of Agriculture, Government of India; deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India; director General, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), The Philippines. He is currently Chairman, M S Swaminathan research Foundation, Chennai (Madras); UNESCI Chair in Ecotechnology; and President, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. He is the recipient of numerous awards, notably Bhatnagar Award (1961), Mendel Memorial Medal (1965), Magsaysay Award (1971), Borlaug Award (1979), Einstein World Science Award (1986), first World Food Prize (1987), Padma Vibhushan Award by President of India (1989), UNESCO Gandhi gold Medal (1999), Roosevelt four Freedoms Award (2000), Toda Award for Peace Achievement (2002), and forty-five honorary doctorate degrees from around the world. He is the author of over three hundred research papers and several books. The Time Magazine ranked him among the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century alongside Gandhi and Tagore.