OBITUARY

MS Swaminathan Legendary Agri-Scientist Who Catalysed The Current Grain Surplus For 1.44 Billion People, Dies At 98

The legendary scientist, born in 1925, that transformed an India that was dependent on wheat shipments as food aid from America, into a food surplus nation, has just passed away in his home in Chennai at the age of 98.  

Lauded on his demise by the President, Prime Minister, Home Minister and Agriculture Minister amongst many eminent and ordinary Bharatiyas, Dr. Mankombu  Sambasivan Swaminathan is succeeded by three highly educated and accomplished daughters.

Assisted by the influential American agronomist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug, the exceptional vision of Dr. MS Swaminathan transformed India’s staple food yields.

From near famine conditions in 1960s Bharat, Dr Swaminathan catalysed the Nehru Government effort towards the ample production of the ‘Green Revolution’ that matured fully during the regime of Indira Gandhi as prime minister.

It all began with a 100 kg bag of seeds of the Mexican Dwarf Wheat sent to Dr Swaminathan by Dr Borlaug. From this small beginning, the wheat yields in India grew more than ten-fold. This was occasioned, after Dr Swaminathan’s conviction in the matter, and his extensive studies in India and several countries abroad.

MS Swaminathan turned down opportunities to work in America, in order to return to his home country to make what turned out to be his singular contribution.

Swaminathan’s early and yeoman efforts towards the introduction of high yielding and disease resistant varieties of wheat, rice, potatoes, and other crops ended the period of chronic food shortfalls in Bharat once and for all. It is said Ms Swaminathan chose his profession as a agricultural scientist after noting the ravages of the Bengal famine in the 1940s. 

MS Swaminathan recognised the potential of the Mexican dwarf wheat varieties early in the day, causing Nehru to write to the Rockefeller Foundation that was financing Dr. Borlaug’s research in Mexico. Swaminathan invited Borlaug to tour India and see conditions for himself, which Borlaug did in 1964. Thereafter, the 1970 Nobel laureate sent Swaminathan a bag containing 100 kg of the Mexican dwarf seed created by Borlaug at the International Centre for Wheat and Maize improvement in Mexico. Dr Swaminathan’s intent was to breed these with varieties from Japan.

By 1956, Mexico had already become self-sufficient in wheat using Borlaug’s dwarf varieties, and Swaminathan was convinced Bharat could do likewise.

On receipt of the new varieties of wheat, Swaminathan started them on a number of experimental plots in different places in Bharat and noted their high yields and disease resistance. Along with his team of scientists, he then organised large numbers of farmers to plant the new varieties in several parts of the country but most notably in Punjab. In 1965, the Indian Agriculture Minister C Subramaniam aided the process by ordering 250 tonnes of the seed.

Swaminathan also introduced new varieties of potato including a frost resistant variety he had developed while working in Wisconsin, USA.

In addition, Swaminathan developed rice varieties with better carbon fixation which allowed for improved photosynthesis and water usage.

Dr MS Swaminathan completed his batchelor’s degree in agricultural science followed by a postgraduate degree in cytogenetics. He served as the Director General of The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. He also served as the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture in 1979. In 1988 Swaminathan was appointed President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Dr MS Swaminathan won a profusion of national and international awards including the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1971, The World Food Prize in 1987 and the Padma Vibushan in 1989. Swaminathan was awarded scores of honorary doctorates throughout his active life.

He was a pivotal figure for decades in India’s march to not just self-sufficiency in food, but creation of enormous surpluses for strategic reserves and exports. This even as the population has more than quadrupled since independence along with a doubling of life expectancy.

(653 words)

September 29^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

KSA Is Now In The Driving Seat For the Bharat West Asia Europe Corridor Incorporating Road, Rail, Port ,Digital Connectivity & Backed By The US

 His Royal Highness Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), Crown Prince and de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), (on behalf of his ailing and elderly father King Salman of the Royal House of Saud), has launched his State Visit to India on the 11^th of September 2023. This is his second state visit since February 2019.

This state visit has come immediately after MBS attended the very successful two-day G21 Summit, concluded on the 10^th. A number of new agreements are likely to be signed during the one-day bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi at Hyderabad House in the capital. Bharat and KSA have also become strategic partners and will be signing the minutes of the first meeting of a strategic council formed for the purpose. Bharat is presently Saudi Arabia’s second largest trading partner but the potential to grow it in quantum and volume terms is considerable. MBS clearly sees this, and is putting his policy heft behind this endeavour alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Agreements on defence, security, trade, services, labour, manufacturing, supply chains, energy, including alternate and renewable energy, agriculture, food security, digital technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), two-way investment programmes, cooperation in space, are some of the areas that will be covered.

Of course, the big new development at the G21 Summit is the massive infrastructure project announced. It was one of the biggest, important and immediately tangible announcements at the Summit. An integrated road, rail, port, ship, sea and digitally connected corridor leading from Bharat through West Asia overland as well as land/sea to Europe, will be commenced within 60 days by all the countries concerned. It will also link the regions it passes through with electricity connectivity and incorporate green Hydrogen pipelines.

It is inclusive of, and will involve, most of the countries in the West Asian region including the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Israel, and then on to Europe by land, as well as via Port Haifa in Israel and Port Piraeus in Greece. It is a massive project involving trillions of dollars in investment, expected to come from in-country resources, multilateral sources such as the World Bank and IMF, some private investment, all underwritten by the US, which is also a member of the I2U2 strategic initiative. It is likely to earn huge resources as well when completed. It has the potential of speeding goods movements from Bharat to Europe by as much as 40%, saving both time and money.

This new set of integrated routes will be an alternative to the overburdened and out-of-date Suez Canal.

The KSA was drifting away from the US after the controversies and criticisms  raised against MBS by America after the grisly murder of dissident Saudi journalist Khashoggi in Turkiye. So much so, that Saudi Arabia drew closer to China that even brokered a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The KSA also did Yuan trades with China for its petroleum exports to the dragon.

President Biden therefore looked visibly pleased at the G21 Summit with Bharat’s initiative of this new Corridor that drew KSA, an old ally, back into the US sphere of influence.

The new and momentous announcement threatens the Chinese debt-trap creating Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and its recent growing influence in West Asia that even sought to mediate in the KSA War with the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Soon after the announcement of this new corridor, G7 member Italy announced its withdrawal from China’s BRI via its Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, very much present at the G21 Summit.

From the Bharatiya perspective, the straws have been in the wind for some time. Adani is already redeveloping Haifa Port in Israel. Haifa is famous from WWI as the place liberated by Bharatiya troops working in the British Empire Army. Those brave mounted soldiers are immortalised in a sculpture facing Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi, which was once the residence of the British Indian Army Chief.

Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a visit to  Athens, Greece, on his way home from Johannesburg where he had gone to attend the BRICS Summit. Greece was last visited by Bharatiya Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, way back, in 1983.

Piraeus Port development in Greece is also on Adani’s radar. Greece is keen on becoming Bharat’s gateway to Europe as expressed by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Karerina Sakellaropoulou during Modi’s day-long recent visit.

The Adani Group has been foremost in modern port development and green infrastructure projects in Bharat, and even coal-mining in Australia. It has been active throughout the last ten years, and even earlier, starting with the highly modern Kandla container handling port and terminus in Gujarat.

Indian Railways has reformed and revived its abilities and could well play a stellar part in the new West-Asian portion of the corridor.

India’s Reliance Industries, one of the world’s biggest petroleum refiners, is an early mover in the area of Hydrogen production and its application in transport amongst other things.

Officially called the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), it is being hailed as a modern-day Spice Route. It is expected to stimulate economic development throughout the Eurasian corridor. In the European section, participants include France, Germany, Italy, the US and the EU.

The MoU drafted at the New Delhi G21 has been signed by India, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union.

 In an initiative that will enthuse the 55 nation African Union, newly a part of the G21, the United States will simultaneously invest in a rail line from Angola in Central Africa, to the Indian Ocean.

China, that absented itself from the New Delhi Summit, is not only stymied diplomatically by these initiatives, it really does not have the money anymore to see its BRI dreams through as the sole financier. The 146 signatories to the BRI will, no doubt, begin to abandon it, following Italy’s example.

Saudi Arabia will play a pivotal role in the West Asian section of the corridor along with the UAE, Israel and Bharat. But through this back-to-back state visit, MBS who’s stopped in New Delhi since the 8^th of September, seeks to expand the strategic partnership with Bharat into multiple avenues. The endeavour is to take it far beyond being one of the world’s biggest petroleum producers. Bharat, on its way to becoming the 3^rd biggest economy in the world with a projected GDP of over $10 trillion, is equally keen on the win-win development.

 

(1,074 words)

September 11, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

The G21 New Delhi Summit With 43 Countries -Invitees, Multilateral Institutions, The Global South & The African Union

This G21 can only be seen as Bharat’s unprecedented and spectacular coming- out-party at the high table bedecked with gleaming silverware. It is hosted by our charismatic Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has established himself as a significant and influential global leader.  

The attendance underlines the recognition of this country as the unstoppable 3^rd largest global power by 2030, with likely a $ 10 trillion plus economy by then.

The first dramatic accomplishment, at the very start of the deliberations today at this mighty gathering, was the induction of the 55 country African Union as a permanent member of the G20 to make it up to G21.

This represents the result of not only Bharat’s steadfast sponsorship and advocacy of this cause, but the recognition of a changing world order. It has been dominated for long and is still led by the G7 countries. Now they, at the urging of India, the obsolescence and racism of old methods, are willing to change.  The economic and political world order has remained almost unchanged since WWII with the West in the driver’s seat. However, the emergence of ancient and modern countries like Bharat that believes in its inclusive and peaceful principles has made an impact. Amongst Prime Minister Modi’s many ‘one world’ coinages, he uses the term ‘Humancentric’ which seems to resonate with other leaders.  

In a counter to Chinese neo-imperialism, institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are going to receive a $ 200 billion injection announced by the United States. Terms will be renegotiated to offer better lending formats to the African Union and other countries of the Global South, groaning under massive and unsupportable debt.

African countries have had to pay as much as five times as much for its multilateral loans which have ended up badly roiling their economies. China has in recent years exploited this anomaly with rapacious terms for  their development loans. These were extended, sometimes to access rich mineral resources, and at other times to push China’s Belt and Road Programme (BRI). Almost all of it however has been bogged down as bad debt because there is little bankability of these developments. It has, in turn, been putting immense pressure on the Chinese economy as well.

The most powerful and significant countries of the world are all here in New Delhi for the two-day summit, with two notable exceptions.

President Putin preoccupied with the Ukraine War, sent his venerable Foreign Minister Lavrov. President Xi Jinping, probably occupied with immense domestic economic ‘turmoil’, as characterised by senior members of the ruling CCP, sent Premier Li who is well known for his economic management. However this came unstuck with his disastrous handling of the severe lockdowns in major Chinese cities during Covid.

Both Russia and China heads, seen as ever closer allies, stayed away from the recent ASEAN Summit in Jakarta as well.

The United States, represented in New Delhi by President Joe Biden has expressed disappointment with China’s no-show. Its tacit and active support to Russia in the conduct of the Ukraine War, along with its belligerent satellite North Korea, is of particular concern. America has also criticised China’s latest bizarre ‘standard map’ that not only claims various territories in India and along the South China Sea, but seeks to disrupt the ‘rules-based-world-order’.

A number of affected countries at ASEAN, and here at the G20 Summit, along with Bharat, have condemned the new Chinese map and China’s attempt at muscle flexing.

Bharat pulled out all the stops to set the environs with flowers and fountains, a spanking new state-of-the-art venue, the host hotels tricked out to be at the top of their game, the approaches, monuments, selected shopping locations, Bharat’s proud digital accomplishments and processes, enormous security preparations, were all decked out in celebratory mode. This comes at the culmination of some 40 meetings of the G20 spread out all over the country.

Inside and outside the summit venue, Bharat’s 5,000 plus year old history and culture was showcased. It was replete with magnificent statues of a number of Hindu Gods. Prime Minister Modi received the honoured guests in front of a replica of the Konarak Wheel from the Sun Temple in Odisha. A massive 27 feet high dancing Nataraja made of Ashtadhatu, fronts the G20 venue dubbed a  Bharat Mandapam.

There is considerable consensus on matters like Climate Change, alternate energy development, and opportunities for the Global South. But the Ukraine War has the US and the G7 countries in a mood to insert a critical reference against Russia in the Declaration expected at the end of the Summit tomorrow the 10^th of September 2023. Russia says a political reference has no place in a G21 economic summit.

Russia, of course, sees the Ukraine War very differently. China and India are not willing to condemn Russia unilaterally for their own reasons. India has called for dialogue to resolve the conflict and has long been saying for long that this is not a time for War. At this summit, Prime Minister Modi referred to a ‘trust deficit’ without once mentioning Ukraine, implying a solution can be found through dialogue.

The paragraph on Ukraine has been left blank by the Sherpas working on the draft declaration. This even as nuanced drafting aimed at a consensus is continuing. Will this scuttle a joint declaration at the end of the summit?

India has had both the USSR and its successor Russia as a steadfast ally and friend for decades, and some 50% of its military equipment is of Russian/Soviet origin. This has been complemented with sourcing from the US, France, Israel in recent years, and more and more emphasis on aatmanirbhar or joint venture manufacturing in Bharat.

If there is an element of peevishness and desire to steal India’s thunder that has caused Chinese President Xi Jinping to stay away from this summit, and the one in Jakarta, it is probably working against China.

Without Xi Jinping adding his sour glowering presence, displayed recently at Johannesburg for the BRICS Summit, there is no great loss. At Johannesburg, the addition of nine new members through consensus amongst the five existing members, by 1^st January 2024 did nor quite go per the Chinese plan. It robbed China of its desire to dominate the forum with just two or three additions of its own choice.

Chinese government mouthpieces such as The Global Times seem to be portraying the Chinese mood today, with its sniping against the New Delhi summit from Beijing.

The question in many minds is just how much trouble is Xi Jinping in, given his poor handling of the Chinese economy and his diplomatic wolf warrior tactics that has almost every country exasperated. He has been called out by his mentor amongst others, and under pressure, has attempted to deny responsibility for the current state of affairs.

The G21 has also announced a railway-based land/port connectivity project involving Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the US and Bharat. This new initiative is also likely to check growing Chinese influence in West Asia.

Brazil will take over the leadership of the G21 after the 10^th of September for the next year.

Prime Minister Modi is working through as many as 15 bilateral meetings and some pull-asides during these three days, ever since the leaders started to arrive on 8^th September. The bilateral with the US reportedly will advance defence cooperation and joint venturing beyond the GE 414 fighter engine deal with 80% technology transfer, and those for the Predator drones.

The one with Bangladesh illustrates the most successful relationship with a neighbouring country. Various others will each advance Bharat’s strategic partnership with its counterparts.

Initiatives to corner economic fugitives, confiscate their properties and freeze their bank accounts are likely to be internationally agreed. Bharat’s digital payment systems may be adopted by as many as a dozen countries.

Amongst all this, the retreat of China from the reformist gathering, despite the presence of Premier Li, may well be marking a watershed moment.

(1,332 words)

September 9^th, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee