Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Food security first responsibility of the nation, says Swaminathan

— Photo: S.James.

great: M. S. Swaminathan, MP, Chairman, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, giving away the Dr. K. M. Thiagarajan Award for Excellence in Management Teaching to M. Sankaran, Director, Bharathidasan Institute of Management, in Madurai on Sunday.

MADURAI: When a nation’s womenfolk are not empowered, the country ceases to be great, said M.S.Swaminathan noted agriculture scientist and Chairman of M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation.

Delivering the fourth Founder’s Day Memorial Lecture, titled “Towards a Nutrition Secure India”, here at Thiagarajar School of Management on Sunday, Prof Swaminathan said that India needs two crore jobs in the non-farming sector during the next 20 years and emphasized that food security should be the first responsibility of the nation towards creating a nutrition secure India.

Prof. Swaminathan started his lecture by reminding the powerful lines of Bharathiar “the world needs to be destroyed if an individual does not have food” and kept the audience spellbound throughout the lecture with statistical minutiae. Stating that agriculture is the largest private sector in the country as the landholding remains with private individuals unlike China where its socially owned, he said that 4.5 per cent growth rate is expected this year in agriculture after years of stagnation.

“We have had policies for agriculture and its only now for the first time we have a policy for the farmers after witnessing farmer suicides and distress and this is indeed a paradigm shift” he said.

He termed the three A’s _ Availability of food, Accessibility to food and Absorption _ as quintessential for availing secure nutrition and emphasized a lot on the Absorption which is lack of access to clean drinking water, as well as poor environmental hygiene and health infrastructure that leads to poor assimilation of the food consumed.

He stressed that nutrition security cannot be achieved without environmental hygiene, primary healthcare and clean drinking water security.

He said that the nutritional divide is increasing between the rich and the poor within and among the States. The situation is particularly alarming in a few states and related condition to the inadequate purchasing power, arising from lack of sustainable livelihood opportunities.

Many other speakers showered encomiums on the contributions of Karumuttu Thiagarajar Chettiar and Karumuttu Manickavasagam Chettiar in multifarious fields like education industry and service. M.M.Murugappan Chairman, Carborundum Universal Limited and Tube Investments of India Limited delivered the presidential address.

Karumuttu Thiagarajar Chettiar Award for Outstanding Entrepreneur was presented to M.Ramasami Managing Director, Rasi Seeds Private Limited, Salem. Karumuttu Manickavasagam Chettiar Award for Distinguished Community Service was given to M.K.Mani, Managing Trustee, Kidney Help Trust and Dr. K.M. Thiagarajan Award for Excellence in Management Teaching was presented to M.Sankaran, Director, Bharathidasan Institute of Management. Manikam Ramaswami, Correspondent, TSM, welcomed the gathering.

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