Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (born 7 August 1925) is an Indian agronomist, agricultural scientist, plant geneticist, administrator and humanitarian. Swaminathan is 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 the Nobel or the highest honours in the field of agriculture. United Nations Environment Programme has called him 'the Father of Economic Ecology'. Swaminathan contributed basic research related to potato, wheat and rice, in areas such as cytogenetics, ionizing radiation and radiosensitivity. He has been a President of the Pugwash Conferences and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In 1999, he was one of three Indians, along with Gandhi and Tagore, on TIME magazines' list of the '20 Most Influential Asian People of the 20th Century', along with Eiji Toyoda, Dalai Lama and Mao Zedong. Swaminathan has received numerous awards and honours, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, Ramon Magsaysay Award and the Albert Einstein World Science Award. mms chaired the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) in 2004 which recommended far-reaching ways to improve India's farming system. He is the founder of an eponymous research foundation. He coined the term 'Evergreen Revolution' in 1990 to describe his vision of 'productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm'. He was nominated to the Parliament of India for one term between 2007 and 2013. During his tenure he tabled a bill for the recognition of women farmers in India, however it lapsed. Life Early life and education of Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan Swaminathan was born in Kumbakonam, Madras Presidency on 7 August 1925. He was the second son of general surgeon Dr. M. K. Sambasivan and Parvati Thangammal Sambasivan who hailed from Alappuzha district in Kerala. After his father's death when he was 11, young Swaminathan was looked after by his father's brother. Swaminathan was educated at a local high school and later at the Catholic Little Flower High School in Kumbakonam, from which