Late Dr. R. N. Poduval, who served in FAO and then was Chairman of Centre for Research in Economic and Social Development, Chennai, was two years his junior in LSE.

In 1940, after obtaining his doctorate at the age of thirty, he joined Madras Christian College, Chennai,[4] as its first professor and head of the economics department.

Prof. K. N. Raj, founder of Centre for Developmental Studies, Tiruvananthapuram, and G. Jagathpathy, former Chief Secretary of the government of Madhya Pradesh, were his students in the 1941-44 batch of BA Honours course.

It was there that I found the testing ground for the many ideas and plans that I carried with me to UNESCO in Paris and from there to the four corners of the earth.His publications in the 1940s included books on banking, rural development, and agricultural transformation.

This association later helped him to support steps for the construction of the World University Service Centre in Chennai and women's hostels in Delhi and Rajasthan.

In that capacity, Adiseshiah signed the UNESCO Fellowship letter in 1949 to M. S. Swaminathan, eminent scientist, and administrator, to pursue research at the Agricultural University in Wageningen, the Netherlands, which was the starting point illustrious career.

Rene Ochs, a fellow member of staff, who later rose to be a Director at UNESCO, wrote about this period: The stage was set for the beginning of a new era.

This required no less than the towering quality of his intelligence, his rare organizational ability and resourcefulness, his uncommon physical stamina, his unrelenting pace of work and unflinching dedication to the task at hand and a faith coupled with realism which carried mountains.UNESCO's tentative proposals were submitted for Technical Assistance for Economic Development in 1950-51.

Adiseshiah organized the new department, established area desks corresponding to UN geographical regions, instituted the procedures and methods of operation, and set up a 'report and information unit' which periodically produced a technical assistance bulletin.

He worked with David Owen, Executive Chairman of the Technical Assistance Board, to convince donor countries since the financing of the expanded program rested on voluntary contributions made by them at pledging conferences.

... education and science also have wider connotations in their application to peace and understanding...Adiseshiah kindled efficiency by arousing team spirit.

After his retirement from UNESCO until 1991, he had visited countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia at their invitation three times a year to advise them on their development plans.

In January 1981, Adiseshiah was elected chairman of the governing board of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) for a five-year period.

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 particular reference to Tamil Nadu state.

This kind of scholarly environment is now extremely rare anywhere in the world.In the early 1990s, he apprehended that the Central and State governments might not fulfill their financial commitments to the institute to the fullest extent necessary.

The General Conference of UNESCO, in its fifteenth session, authorized the publication of a work designed to clarify the basic concepts concerning the contribution of education, science, and culture to develop.

In the course of the discussions about the resolution, reference was made to the many speeches of Adiseshiah on related themes delivered in Oxford, United Kingdom in 1961; Cambridge, UK, and Tananarive, Madagascar in 1962; Madras, India in 1963; Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1964; Washington, DC, USA in 1968 and many others.

His meticulously compiled two-volume report, one on a retrospect and the other on the prospect, had been an influential guide in the development of social science of research in India at that period.

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.

Late V. R. Nedunchezhiyan, who was a cabinet minister in the DMK and AIADMK ministries in Tamil Nadu, recalled 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.

Adiseshiah was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in April 1978 for a six-year term as one of the twelve persons under the category of those having special knowledge and practical experience in literature, science, art, and social service.

He initiated a pioneering research work by a French scholar tracing the history and traditions of the Sri Rangam temple in Tamil Nadu.

Adisehsiah succeeded Prof. Lakdawala as Chairman of the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) and last presided over the Governing Body meeting on 11 November 1994.

It was in the inaugural address to the seminar on Panchayati Raj in Karnataka in October 1985 at ISS that Adiseshiah made the following often-quoted comment: Tamil Nadu, for instance, has had no panchayat elections for the last 15 years since 1971.

They are Malcolm Adiseshiah, Sri Aurobindo, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Jiddu Krishnamurti, J.P. Naik, Rabindranath Tagore, and Vivekananda.

The prize rewards organizations or individuals who displayed outstanding merit and achieved with particularly effective results in contributing to the fight for literacy among the member countries of UNESCO.

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 a significant contribution to the rehabilitation of child labor and for imparting vocational education to improve their lot.

Voorhees College, Vellore has instituted annual awards of Dr. Malcolm S. Adiseshiah Prize for Proficiency in History to the best III year student of the B.A.

IIT Delhi Academician Reetika Khera, Avijit Pathak from the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU, Research Scholar V. Kalyan Shankar and Kannan Vishwanatth received the Malcolm Adiseshiah award.