Conference on "Advances in Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology" organised at DAV College

Jalandhar, March 2, 2015: A DBT Sponsored conference on "Advances in Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology" organised at DAV College, Jalandhar

A one day conference was organized at DAV College on occasion of National Science Day. It was a collaborative effort of Department of Botany, Biotechnology and Food Science under DBT Star college scheme. Conference organising secretary Dr.Komal Arora gave information that the idea of organising conference on agricultural biotechnology was to provide common platform to researchers and academicians, research scholars and students from various reputed institutes, universities and colleges to discuss upcoming challenges and technologies being developed to combat food demands of growing population and environment degradation.

On this occasion, the programme started with lighting lamp ceremony followed by formal welcome by conference convener Prof. B. Singla. Principal Dr. B.B. Sharma, vice principal Prof. P K Sharma, registrar Dr. Ravi Manuja, Dr. Renuka Malhotra, Dr. Komal Arora, DBT coordinator Dr. Rajeev Sharma, Prof. T D Saini, Prof. Ajay Aggarwal, Dr. Hemant Kumar, PRO Prof. Manish Khanna and other staff members welcomed chief guest Dr. Anil Grover and other resource persons Dr. Aruna Bhatia and Dr. P K Pati.

Dr. B B Sharma addressed all resource persons and delegates to highlight the need and importance of celebrating National Science Day. He said that decreasing green belts due to increasing urbanisation is an alarming call to inculcate the habit of plantation and procuring nature. The easiest way to conserve environment is self regulated regime. He emphasised on the idea of No Science No World, therefore scientific intervention is must to restore and conserve nature for future generations.

The inaugural talk of the conference was delivered by Dr. Anil Grover, University of Delhi. He talked about Future Agriculture: Stress tolerant Transgenic Plants. He explained the need to develop stress resistant varieties because plants are under extreme salt stress and other abiotic stresses due to water scarcity, natural calamities, increasing population demands etc. He discussed various government programmes to bring students into research careers to meet the objectives in agricultural science.

Dr. Aruna Bhatia, Patiala University, delivered a talk on Food Allergies. She talked about allergies from milk, fish, wheat, chocolate or poultry products which leads to insomnia, depression, Diarrhoea, sometimes severe anaphylaxis or death. She discussed underlying mechanisms and management of such food allergies in detail.

Dr. P K Pati, GNDU, Amritsar, talked about his research on Ashwagandha, a medicinal plant. He highlighted its therapeutic uses to cure cancer, heart attack and other deadly diseases.

Dr. Purnanand Guptasarma, IISER, Mohali delivered Key Note address of the conference. He talked about Responsible Biotechnology. He said that modern biotechnology has created scope for good as well as bad. But a balance is needed to be discovered and adopted between industry driven research and research that drives industry.

Dr. Manoj K Dhar, University of Jammu delivered an expert talk on Carotenoids. These are plant pigments which are highly nutritious for humans. These serve as antioxidants to protect from cancer or other vascular diseases.

The valedictory ceremony concluded with Best Poster Awards in Botany, Biotechnology and Food science sections. It was won by "Agrobacterium mediated transformation of sugarcane" and " Effect of auxins on green pod culture".

At the end, Dr. Renuka Malhotra, conference coordinator thanked all resource persons, delegates, organisers and members of teaching and non-teaching faculty to make this event successful.