When was Malcolm Sathiyanathan Adiseshiah born?
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Malcolm Sathiyanathan Adiseshiah (18 April 1910 – 21 November 1994), was an Indian development economist and educator. In 1976 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, a civilian award given for "distinguished service of a high order...without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex." In 1998 the UNESCO created ‘The Malcolm Adiseshiah International Literacy Prize’ in recognition of his contribution to education and literacy.
Malcolm Adiseshiah
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Adiseshiah was born on 18 April 1910 in Vellore, southern India. He is the second of the five children of Paul Varanasi Adiseshiah and Grace Nesamma Adiseshiah. His father was professor of philosophy and the first Indian principal of Voorhees College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu State, India. His mother was a musician, who had studied up to the Senior Cambridge (High School) and was the first woman Councilor of the Vellore Municipality. She taught her five children until they were ten years of age. Malcolm Adiseshiah obtained a doctorate in economics at the London School of Economics, William, the eldest brother, in philosophy at Cambridge, Padmini in education and Noble in medicine.
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The "Emerald Jubilee Malcolm S. Adiseshiah Award" consisting of a gold medallion, a certificate and a shield, is given by the State Resource Centre, Chennai, every year to a district Collector who had made significant contribution for the rehabilitation of child labour and for imparting vocational education to improve their lot. Adiseshiah was the first president of the centre (an autonomous body under the Union Ministry of Human Resource) at its inception in 1973, and held the post for a decade. Dr. Malcolm Adiseshiah Award by the Tamil Nadu Board of Continuing Education and State Resource Centre for Non-Formal Education is given to a person in recognition of his contribution to Adult Education at a function in commemoration of the World Science Day. Dr. Malcolm Adiseshiah Award of Honour is also given by them for outstanding community service.
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He was president of the Viswayuvak Kendra. He was a member of the UGC Standing Committee on Adult Education. When the country launched the National Literacy Mission on 5 November 1988, Adiseshiah was the natural choice for its leadership. The Mission searched for an alternative agency and a strategy to create a country wide churning for literacy and created the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samithi (BGVS) in August 1989 and invited Adiseshiah to be its President. BGVS facilitated the shift of the adult education from a government controlled, government sponsored programme to acquire a status of a mass movement. Adiseshiah had the satisfaction of witnessing the declaration of Ernakulam district in Kerala as having achieved the status of total literacy on 4 February 1990. The new premises of the State Resources Centre of the Tamil Nadu Board of Continuing Education was named after him and was declared open on his 83rd birthday on 18 April 1992.
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Adiseshiah married Helen Paranjothi, with whom he had a son and a daughter. The separation process with Helen Paranjothi started in 1946 and the annulment of the marriage came in 1956. Adiseshiah then married Elizabeth Pothen, a history professor who he met at the Madras Women’s Christian College.
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Late V. R. Nedunchezhiyan, who was for long a cabinet minister in the DMK and AIADMK ministries in Tamil Nadu, recalled in the memorial meeting held in the Centenary Hall of the Madras University in December 1995 that Adiseshiah refused to accept the offer of a Governorship of a state in 1977. He said that a central cabinet minister asked Adiseshiah’s consent for appointment as Governor of Goa. Adiseshiah immediately refused the offer stating that he was not willing to accept any task which would cause his long separation from his beloved MIDS. The central Cabinet minister, after consulting with the then Prime Minister of India, offered Adiseshiah the Governorship of Tamil Nadu, knowing full well that it was against the prevailing convention that no person born in any state would be appointed Governor of that state.
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Non-formal education to cover the vast multitudes that were denied a chance to join formal educational institutions was attempted in various forms in India. The Farmers Functional Literacy Project of 1967 was among the earliest attempts in India. Adiseshiah founded the Tamil Nadu Board of Continuing Education in 1976 and took all steps to sustain and advance its activities. He was its President for four terms. He chaired the Non-Formal Education Curriculum Preparation Committee in 1976. When the National Adult Education Programme (NAEP) was launched on 2 October 1978, Adiseshiah, then Vice-Chancellor of Madras University was appointed President of the Indian Adult Education Association. Soon he became a member of the Rajya Sabha and used the opportunity to expand the adult education programme to cover all parts of the country.
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In September 1970 Adiseshiah and his wife Elizabeth registered in Paris a trust fund for starting Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS hereafter). MIDS was conceived to undertake studies and research on developmental issues on the economy, polity and society with special reference to Tamil Nadu state. MIDS started functioning from January 1971 in one of their properties in Gandhinagar, Adyar, a Chennai suburb. Adiseshiah was its first Director. Adiseshiah started publishing the publishing of ‘Bulletin – Madras Development Seminar Series’ in February 1971, and wrote its editorials every month from Feb. 1971 covering international, national and Tamil Nadu issues, until his death. ‘This surely’ wrote, Prof.S. Subramanian, in the prolegomena of the special issue of the Bulletin bought out after his demise, ‘is the stuff of which archives are made’10
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In 1930 Adiseshiah joined as a lecturer in St. Paul's Cathedral Mission College, an affiliate of the University of Calcutta and continued until 1936. In the college he worked on planning a rural service programme in cooperation with the Visva-Bharati University associates at Sriniketan and Santiniketan.
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In March 1950 Adiseshiah was promoted to the post of Director of technical assistance department, he was one of its six top executives. Adiseshiah was authorized to represent the Director-General at the technical assistance board set up by the UN.
Malcolm Adiseshiah