Date: March 25, 2026
Time: 05:30 PM
Venue: Lecture Hall 2003, Block 7, IISER Berhampur
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Feeding the Future: Designing Climate -Smart, Nutrient -Rich Crops
Application of cutting-edge technologies has played an important role in the growth and development of humanity throughout the world. Indian agriculture has witnessed a great transformation since independence. It was all because of the political will, and the vision of than Indian Agricultural Scientists, we witnessed Green Revolution in early 70s with the increased production in rice and wheat.
With the advent of New Breeding Technologies (NBT) such as Genomics, Marker- assisted-selection (MAS), Transgenics and Genome editing (GE), crop improvement programmes can be further accelerated. India has witnessed an exponential growth in cotton production after the introduction of Bt cotton developed by using transgenic approach. This has improved the life of millions of cotton growers and related individuals and industries. Beside genomics, marker assisted selection (MAS) and genome editing, which are Non- GM approaches of improving crop varieties for climate resilience and nutrients, are being used extensively for the improvement of rice, wheat, mustard and many other crops in India.The application of NBT in crop improvement is playing an important role in sustainable crops production, hence we need to harness the benefits of these cutting-edge technologies for the welfare of farming community.
Prof. Tilak Raj Sharma - Prof. Tilak Raj Sharma, a well-known Plant Molecular Biologist, is presently working as ICAR-National Professor-BP Pal Chair at NIPB, IARI, New Delhi. He has more than 10 years’ experience as a Research Administrator in different capacities such as Deputy Director General (Crop Science), ICAR, New Delhi; acting DDG (Horticulture Science), Director &Vice Chancellor, IARI, New Delhi, IARI Assam, IARI Jharkhand and Director, NIBSM, Raipur; Executive Director, DBT- National Agri- Food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali; Chief Executive Officer, DBT-Center of Innovative and Applied Bioprocessing; Director, ICAR- National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi and OSD, ICAR- Indian Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology Ranchi. Prof. Sharma is the fellow of all four national academies. He has been awarded (twice) the prestigious JC Bose National Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology, Govt of India.
His major research interests are in the areas of Genomics and plant disease resistance. Prof. Sharma has contributed extensively to the improvement of rice for over 35 years and identified and cloned a new rice blast resistance gene Pi54 which has been deployed in more than 40 rice varieties in India and abroad.
