Dr. Subrahmaniam Nagarajan, former Chairperson of the PPV&FRA, Government of India, held the rank of Secretary to the Government and is one of India’s foremost agriculture scientists. Born on 7 November 1945, he had his early education at the Agriculture College, Coimbatore, the Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi and obtained his Ph.D from the Delhi University in 1973.  He joined the IARI / ICAR in 1974 as wheat pathologist and continued his research interest on the epidemiology of the cereal rusts.   On the basis of a series of epidemiological investigations he propounded the stem rust rules and using climatic data explained the nature and recurrence of Puccinia graminis tritici and P recondita tritici. These rules suggest that the urediniospores originating from the Nilgiris spread to Central India under the influence of tropical cyclone that occurs in the Bay of Bengal during November. Based on this a disease management strategy was formulated and implemented to contain crop losses. On a similar basis he and his team explained the nature and recurrence of the leaf rust (P. recondita tritici) and the stripe rust (P. striiformis) over the Indo gangetic plain. He proposed “Gene Deployment” as a strategy and developed gene matching technique to postulate the resistance genes in the variety before its official release. The execution of the strategy he did, as Project Director of the All India Wheat program was so perfect that for the last nearly 12 years there has been no serious crop loss due to rust epidemics. Thus India saves each year nearly 6 to 7 million tons of wheat grain that was otherwise lost due to the outbreak of wheat rust diseases in different parts of the country. 

As ADG (PP) ICAR and as Acting DDG (CS) he was involved with several of the AICIPs and variety identification process for number of crops. As Member of the Central Pesticide Registration Committee, Central Variety Identification Committee, Chairman MEC, Co-Chair RCGM, member GEAC, Chairman Agriculture Biotechnology, DBT, Chairman of ICMR committee on Agriculture and Nutrition, Advisor, MSSRF and chaired several special committees constituted by the Government departments.   He was a member of Board of management of TNAU and Raj AU, NDRI and IVRI; and the GB and SFC of ICAR.  

During his period as Director of the wheat program, he developed new tillage options as zero tillage, raised bed system of planting and popularized them. Also he initiated wheat molecular biology program at national level for marker-aided selection for rust resistance and for grain quality improvement. Along with his colleagues he identified two new leaf rust resistance genes as Lr48 and Lr49. The trade has acknowledged the grain classification and grading system recommended by him. He has been the torchbearer of India’s wheat program. He and his colleagues developed a wheat variety DBW 14 for the eastern gangetic plain and were released by the CVRC.  His team holds a US patent on a chemical molecule which when sprayed in low concentrations induces anther/pollen sterility and is used in the production of hybrid wheat.   He introduced wheat cultivation and a Dharwar variety in the tropical hills of Indonesia, a success story and now about 1000 acres are said to be under this genotype.     

As Director of IARI he made improvement in the research and teaching by revising the PG School curriculum, vision document, reframing the research projects and filed 11 patents for IARI, established the business development cell and institute-Industry interphase to transfer research products to enterprise.  During the centenary year of the Institute started new rural development activities with the motto “Progress through Agriculture”. He Chaired the Indo-French Joint Working Group of the DOAC and member Indo-US joint working group on Agriculture Biotechnology and is Current Member of the GB of NABI, DBT. He was a member of the Centre Commissioned External Review (CCER) of CIMMYT, Mexico, and was a consultant to ICRISAT, CIMMYT, ICARDA and expert consultant to the FAO.  

Dr. S. Nagarajan was awarded the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award of the ICAR (1978-79), Conferred the “Award of Distinction” at the International Plant Protection Congress, The Hague (1995), M.O.P. Iyengar Lecture Award of the University of Madras (2000),  Om Prakash Bashin Award (2001), Chaudhri Ram Dhan Singh Award for contribution to wheat improvement (2002) by HAU, Hissar, Dr. K.S. Bilgrami Award of INSA (2004) Dr. Norman Borlaug Award of the Coromandel Fertilizers (2005), Dr. A.S. Cheema Award of the Young Farmer’s Association of Punjab (2005), and received from the Prime Minister of India the “Dr. B.P. Pal Gold Medal” in the 93rd Indian Science Congress for contribution to Science and Technology – wheat pathology and wheat improvement (2006). He received the Silver Jubilee Medal of INSA for contribution to Agriculture and Allied Sciences (2006) for his contributions to science and agriculture, the third Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Award and Gold Medal in 2010 and was conferred the lifetime achievement award by Indian Society of Mycology and Plant Pathology in 2012.  

He is Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (2005), National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1992), National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad (2002), and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (1978) Germany. He presided and delivered the convocation address at the Punjab Agricultural University (2005), the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai (2006), Panchaquila University, Jakarta (Indonesia) 2010, Chandrasekar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur (211). As Distinguished Fellow, he was with Prof Kogel, JLU, Giessen, Germany and submitted a report on Ug99 to INSA. He is author of 140 research papers, 50 book chapters and two textbooks and had visited several countries.