Current Science

P. C. Kesavan ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, III Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

No Abstract.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan’s Research Foundation, Taramani, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

No Abstract.

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P. C. Kesavan ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

The evergreen revolution aims at achieving productivity in perpetuity without accompanying ecological and social harm. The smallholder family farms with pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation provide a boost to the evergreen revolution. Revitalization of family farming traditions with emphasis on the empowerment of women and youth will enhance small farm productivity and profitability on the one hand, and nutrition-sensitive agriculture on the other. Family farms enhance the rural livelihoods. Corporate farming displaces three to four jobs for every single job created. Monocropping largely practiced by the corporate farms is not conducive to develop strategies to provide agricultural remedies to nutritional maladies in different agro-ecological regions.

Keywords

Corporate and Family Farming, Evergreen Revolution, Hunger-Free World, Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture.

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S. Nagarajan ¹, R. V. Bhavani ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Taramani, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

Despite impressive gain in agricultural production and greater availability of food, a large population in India is suffering from nutritional imbalance. Improvements in total agricultural production leading to nutritive food would help combat under nutrition. To demonstrate the feasibility of agriculture- based remedy to malnutrition, five villages in Wardha district of Maharashtra were selected for validating the farming system for nutrition (FSN) approach.

On-farm demonstrations of arable crops and women-managed community nutrition gardens (CNGs) of vegetables and fruits were initiated. A wide choice of nutritive vegetables to be grown was promoted to reduce the off-farm transport cost and ensure higher availability of nutritive vegetables to the households. The additional nutritional gain through FSN can be quantified in terms of equivalence and can be calibrated to ensure that the households get the recommended daily intake of nutrition. Accordingly, a FSN approach is evolved to provide nutritional security to every house-hold.

Keywords

Community Nutrition Garden, Farming System for Nutrition, Nutritional Security, Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹, P. C. Kesavan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

No Abstract.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 World Food Prize Selection Committee, M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

The 2016 Global Nutrition Report of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) indicates that one of the high priorities of humankind should be ending malnutrition, because of its multiple adverse impact on human health and quality of life. Children are the worst victims and it is now realized that we should adopt a life cycle approach in terms of nutrition intake with special emphasis on the first thousand days in a child's life.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹, P. C. Kesavan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

At the International Geological Congress held in August 2016 in Cape Town, the assembled scientists came to the conclusion that a new geological epoch - the anthropocene - needs to be recognized as the dawn of human influenced age (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/29/declare-anthropocene-epoch-experts-urge-geological-congress-human-impact-earth).

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P. C. Kesavan ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Taramani, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

While the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) has been developing and refining ecofriendly and socially inclusive strategies to achieve a 'zero hunger' India, the 'Voluntary Health Service' (VHS) in the neighbourhood of MSSRF has been focusing on providing quality health care to patients who are too poor to get medical treatment as those with adequate means. On the food front, it is remarkable that India has implemented the 'Right to Food Act 2012' with homegrown food through scientific endeavours and accomplishments. The situation with health care and medical treatment is quite different with the drugs developed by multinational companies, their undesirable side-effects as well as their cost beyond the means of millions of Indians. Under these circumstances, particularly with regard to the treatment and management of both type-1 and type-2 diabetes, the TAG-VHS Chennai, has already made remarkable progress. Towards the goal of successful treatment and sustainable management of diabetes, the TAG-VHS has introduced cost-effective integrative system of medicines (ayurveda, dynamic acupuncture mediated metaphysical energy-healing therapies and limited use of relatively safer allopathic drugs). The validation of the effectiveness of various combinations and modalities of the systems of medicine is based on the 'treatment outcome' without adverse side effects. The limitations of randomized clinical trials are discussed with examples and scientific references. Even though TAG-VHS employs cost-effective treatment schedules, there is still the need for necessary financial base. In order to create this financial support base, it has also innovated a scheme called the 'Grand Health Ensurance' (GHE) that is a revolutionary, completely transparent and inclusive health ensuring model where the affordable persons pay 1% of their total income per annum which automatically covers Health Ensurance of 1-2 persons for 1 year. This paper discusses how the cost-effective, harmful sideeffects-free integrative systems of medicine coupled with GHE would provide a sustainable path to achieve the goal of 'health for all'.

Keywords

Adverse Side Effects, Anti-Diabetic Drugs, Cost-Effective Treatment, Diabetes Type-1 and 2, Grand Health Ensurance Model, Health for all, TAG-Voluntary Health Service.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 Research Foundation, III Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai-600 113, IN

Abstract

In the first part of the letter, Gupta has rightly brought out several of my earlier publications to transform the green revolution into an evergreen revolution, largely to remove the environmental and social harm caused by the former. The evergreen revolution integrating ecoagriculture and on-farm and non-farm eco-enterprises is designed to fight both the famines of food and rural livelihoods.

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P. C. Keshavan ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, III Cross Street, Institutional Area, Taramani, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

Adayapalam T. Natarajan (ATN) whose name has became synonymous with radiationcytogenetics and biodosimetry over the past few decades, passed away on 28 August 2017 in Leiden, The Netherlands,where he had lived for over fifty years. ATN was introduced to cytogenetics by one of us (MSS) in the mid 1950s in the Botany Division of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. In fact, he was the first research scholar to obtain the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy(Ph D) under the guidance of MSS. During 1964–65, ATN taught an advanced three-credit course in cytology and PCK credited this course.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹, P. C. Kesavan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, III Cross, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

From the beginning of 2018, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become priority areas needing international and national attention and action. There are 17 goals, of which goal no. 2 reads as follows ‘End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’. These goals are exceedingly important for our country in view of the widespread prevalence of undernutrition and malnutrition. Therefore, we should develop a scientific and social strategy to achieve these goals.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹, P. C. Kesavan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, III Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day (8 March 2018), Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the National Nutrition Mission and Pan India Expansion of ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’, covering all the 640 districts of the country. The National Nutrition Mission is timely in the context of widespread malnutrition prevailing in India. It is therefore important to accelerate our efforts in achieving a malnutrition-free India. This requires concurrent attention to three major types of hunger, viz. calorie deprivation, protein hunger and hidden hunger caused by the deficiency of micronutrients. It is equally important that agriculture, nutrition and health come together in a synergetic manner.

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R. V. Bhavani , P. C. Kesavan , M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 III Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

Professor Prakash Shetty (PS), CEO of the Research Programme Consortium (RPC) on ‘Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA)’ (http ://www.lansasouthasiaorg) led by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), till recently, passed away in London on Monday, 3 September 2018, after fighting cancer for about seven years.

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Nitya Rao ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ²

Affiliations
1 Gender and Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, GB
2 Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

India today continues to witness both protests and suicides by farmers. These appear to be the only ways to confront rural agrarian distress by a majority of farmers, facing unviable agricultural livelihoods and unsustainable futures, despite their best efforts to manage climate change, as reflected in the vagaries of the monsoon, and unpredictable markets. While for the first, scientific solutions can be found, price volatility and market instability are increasingly shaped by political decisions and policies linked to global trade and industry. The immediate responses to both farmer suicides and protests have been farm loan waivers. These are, however, short-term measures, and do not address the longer-term sustainability of the farm sector. Here, we propose six key principles for ensuring sustainability in relation to food and nutrition security.

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P. C. Kesavan ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Third Cross Street, Institutional Area, Taramani, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

In the hierarchy of human needs, food is absolutely the most basic. As the human population was increasing at an accelerated rate with concomitant depletion of natural resources during the 18th century, Malthus was greatly concerned about the sustainability of food availability. Despite the fact that the human population has been burgeoning, a total collapse in food supply has not yet happened. This is because of new technologies emerging from time to time to boost agricultural productivity and preventing the onset of the Malthusian scourge. However, none of these technologies, including the Green Revolution of the 1960s, has been truly sustainable largely because of their adverse environmental and social impacts. It is expected that the Evergreen Revolution which eliminates the negative attributes of the Green Revolution would be more sustainable. Critical evaluation of the most modern technology, modern biotechnology, reveals that the Btand herbicide-tolerant-crops are highly unsustainable. In addition to causing environmental harm, these crops exhibit genotoxic effects. The original objective of reducing the need for application of chemical pesticides has also not been realized. There is need for basic research to understand the causes of ‘unintended effects’ associated with genetically engineered crops. It will be prudent to adhere to the recommendations of the Task Force on Agricultural Biotechnology, Government of India (2004) in the development and regulation of genetically engineered crops. These aspects are briefly discussed in this article.

Keywords

Green to Evergreen Revolution, Modern Technologies, Nutrition Security, Sustainable Food.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹, G. N. Hariharan ¹, P. C. Kesavan ¹

Affiliations
1 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Taramani, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

At a time when it seemed that continued availability of biodiversity in general, and agro-biodiversity in particular was taken for granted, one of us (MSS) as early as January 1983 in his Presidential address at the 15th International Congress of Genetics¹, held in New Delhi drew attention of the delegates to the importance of conservation of biodiversity of all organisms from ‘microbes to man’. More than fifty years ago, it had occurred only to a few geneticists that there would be no plant breeding at all, whether molecular or Mendelian, should all the wild progenitors and related species of the cultivated crops become extinct.

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M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

I first met Vikram Sarabhai in 1966 soon after he had taken over as Head of the Department of Atomic Energy following the premature and unfortunate demise of Homi Bhabha. I had known earlier his wife, the famous Bharanatyam dancer, Mrinalini. From 1966 onwards I have been in close touch with the Sarabhai family, although Vikram himself passed away suddenly at Thiruvananthapuram in December 1971. He had spoken at the dedication of the Nuclear Research Laboratory at IARI and he left for Thiruvananthapuram the following day. Thus we lost two of our eminent scientists – Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai soon after the other.

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P. C. Kesavan ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ¹

Affiliations
1 Chennai 600 115, IN

Abstract

Professor Virender Lal Chopra, an eminent agricultural geneticist and biotechnologist, passed away on 18 April 2020 at New Delhi. He was born on 9 August 1936 in Adhwal, a small village in the periphery of Rawalpindi in West Punjab that was part of British India. His father Harbans Lal and mother Sukhwanti moved to Delhi following partition of India in 1947 which also was the year of India’s independence. His schooling was at Ramjas School, Delhi.

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P. C. Kesavan ¹, M. S. Swaminathan ²

Affiliations
1 N-19, Maxworth Nagar, Kovilambakkam, Sunnambu Kolathur, Chennai 600 129, IN
2 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai 600 113, IN

Abstract

No Abstract.

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