(Left) Participants of the ACIP meeting. (Right) DG William Dar addresses the participants.

The XI Task Force Meeting on Accelerated Crop Improvement Programme (ACIP) of India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT) was hosted at ICRISAT on 11 October. Attended by the Task Force members, Project Coordinators, Principal Investigators (PIs) and Co-PIs, about 45 ongoing projects under 7 network projects were reviewed during the meeting.

“These days, Hyderabad is the center of the global discourse on biodiversity. Despite lots of critics and nonbelievers, modern biotechnology including marker-assisted breeding, transgenic crops and genomics are all useful in biodiversity conservation,” said Director General William Dar in his address to the group.

Dr Dar added that “ICRISAT’s collaborative experience with India’s DBT has been very productive, as evident in the establishment of the Center of Excellence in Genomics (CEG) headed by Dr Rajeev Varshney, and the molecular breeding in chickpea, among several others.” He also recognized the role and contribution of DBT in the establishment of the Platform for Translational Research on Transgenic Crops (PTTC) at ICRISAT.

Dr RR Sinha, DBT Senior Adviser, acknowledged ICRISAT’s work and willingness to extend help in organizing the meeting at the Patancheru campus. Professor PK Gupta, Chairman of the DBT-ACIP Task Force, congratulated ICRISAT for its outstanding facilities and excellent meeting arrangement and hospitality.

Source: ICRISAT Happenings