M.S. Swaminathan conferred with Mother Teresa Memorial Award
Posted on: 02/Oct/2010 12:59:47 AM
N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, presented ‘the Mother Teresa Memorial Award to Prof M.S. Swaminathan in a function organized by the Indian Development Foundation in Chennai on Friday. I Prof M.S. Swaminathan, agricultural scientist and chairman of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation is responsible for ‘Green revolution’ inn India. The award and citation are an acknowledgment of Prof. Swaminathan`s contributions as an outstanding scientist to alleviating hunger and his relentless advocacy of science with humanism.
Drawing a parallel between the religious mission of Mother Teresa and the scientific work of Prof. Swaminathan, Mr. Ram said both shared the humanitarian goal of alleviating mass deprivations and hunger.
In his acceptance speech, Prof. Swaminathan said that it was the “poverty of spirit and compassion” and not the dearth of schemes that resulted in the persistence of such mass deprivation in India. No other country had so many schemes to redress hunger and poverty and yet they continued to persist because of the poverty of compassion, he said.
He said the need of the hour was, in the words of Mother Teresa, for people to “live together, pray together and work in peace.”
A.R.K. Pillai, Founder President, IDF in his felicitation speech commended Prof. Swaminathan`s far-sighted advocacy of bio-villages, village knowledge centres and a three-tier food programme, from production to assimilation in the distribution system.
S.K. Noordeen, former director of the leprosy division, World Health Organisation, said the advances in leprosy control in India could be attributed to the recommendations that the committee chaired by Prof. Swaminathan had made in 1982.
