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ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) celebrated its 45th Foundation Day on August 2, 2020. It was an online programme organised through Zoom platform. Additionally, it was live telecasted through YouTube for benefit of students from NARS system including ICAR institutes and Agricultural Universities. A total of 230 people joined through zoom while the others watched the function on YouTube. The DDG (Crop Sciences), ICAR Dr TR Sharma was the Chief Guest and the ADG (Seeds) Dr DK Yadava was the Guest of Honour. Dr Kuldeep Singh, Director, ICAR-NBPGR, presented an overview of achievements of the institute in the last one year. On this occasion, the ‘8th Dr Harbhajan Singh Memorial Lecture’ on "Challenges to the utilization of genebanks" was delivered by Professor Paul Gepts, Department of Plant Sciences, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Davis, USA.
On the occasion, four publications in Hindi were released Viz. ??.??.???.?.- ????????? ???? ????????? ?????? ??????????- ???????? ???, ????-?????, ???? ???? ????, ???? ???????, ???? ?????? ?? ?????? ????; ???? ???????? ??????? ??, ????-???? ????????, ???? ???? ????, ? ????, ???? ????? ?? ?????? ????; ??? ?? ??????? ?? ?? ??????, ????-???? ???? ????, ????? ????, ??????, ???? ????,? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ??????? ????? ??? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ????, ????- ?????? ???? ???, ???? ????, ???? ?????, ???? ???? ?????, ???? ??????. One booklet in English on “Genus Sesamum L. in India: An Illustrated Guide for Species Identification” authored Dr. K Pradheep, Dr. Suma S, Dr. Parimalan R, Dr. Rashmi Yadav, Dr. Swathy Subhah K, and Dr. Reshma R was released.
PGR CLiM, an interactive application for climate smart PGR management was launched on the occasion. PGR CLiM, developed by Dr Sunil Archak and team under ICAR National Fellow Project, aims to assist in designating pre-adapted germplasm as well as identifying vulnerable areas. The application holds information on geo-referenced >60K indigenous accessions from Indian genebank belonging to ten target crops (rice, wheat, sorghum, pearl millet, pigeon pea, chickpea, brassica, sesame, chilli pepper, brinjal). The purpose of making PGR CLiM available to researchers could be possible because of collaboration with IASRI, who have hosted the tool on ICAR Krishi Geoportal. Meeting was also attended by ex-Directors of ICAR-NBPGR namely Dr. RS Rana, Dr. PL Gautam, Dr. B S Dhillon and Dr. SK Sharma and they expressed their satisfaction with progress made by Bureau over the period and gave their blessings for its bright future ahead.The Guest of Honour Dr. DK Yadav ADG (Seeds) appreciated the significant progress made towards the documentation, collection, conservation and use of genetic resources, but said that more needed to be done towards their sustainable use. The chief guest of function Dr. T R Sharma DDG (CS) in his address appreciated the work undertaken by the Bureau and said that on foundation day, the staff need to introspect on the work already done and set fresh priorities for the next year. He encouraged the staff to continue its good work in the years to come with greater emphasis on publication in peer-reviewed journals.
(Source: PME Cell, ICAR-NBPGR)
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