Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) is going to celebrate its 58th Convocation on 14th February at the IARI campus where the Vice-President of India Venkaiah Naidu will chair the seat of the chief guest. Moreover, Narendra Singh Tomar; Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Kailash Chaudhary; Minister of State, Agriculture & Farmers Welfare as well as the Secretary, DARE & Director General, ICAR; Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra will be also present in the prestigious convocation event.
Moreover, having accorded the status of a Deemed University in 1958, so far the Post Graduate School of IARI has awarded degrees to 10,005 students (4148 M.Sc., 69 M. Tech. and 4885 Ph.D.) that include 399 international students from 14 foreign countries. In the 58th Convocation, 245 students including foreign students will receive their degrees. During the convocation, besides the degree, 5 merit medals and 1 Best student award both for MSc and Ph.D. students will be bestowed upon. Further, Best Teacher Award; Sukumar Basu Memorial Award; Harikrishna Shastri Memorial Award; Best Extension Scientist Award; and Dr. A.B. Joshi Memorial Award will be conferred on outstanding scientists.
IARI has been the flag-ship organization in developing high yielding crop varieties/ hybrids with resilience to several biotic and abiotic stresses and enhanced nutritional quality. The increasing breeder seed demand of the Pusa varieties is the testimonial of their popularity among the farmers.
Basmati rice varieties like Pusa Basmati 1121, Pusa Basmati 1509 and other improved Basmati varieties such as Pusa Basmati 1718, Pusa Basmati 1637, etc developed by IARI is grown in nearly 1.5 million ha area and during 2018-19 they helped in securing Rs. 32800 crores of foreign exchange. Wheat varieties HD 2967, HD 3086 and other varieties released by the IARI together contributed about 60 percent of total wheat production of the country worth for Rs. 81000 crores.
