03 Nov 2017|Noida | F1 seminar hall
Valedictory Ceremony of five day “Indo- African Training Programme”
Sir Richard RobertsCentre for Genetically Modified Organisms, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, inassociation with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Biotech ConsortiumIndia Ltd. (BCIL) organized a five day “Indo- African Training Programme” on‘Virus Indexing and Genetic Fidelity Testing of Tissue Culture Plants forAfrican Candidates’ which concluded today at Amity UniversityCampus,Sector-125, Noida.
15 delegates from 9 Africancountries attended the Training Programme that aimed at apprising delegatesabout the effectiveness of virus indexing and genetic fidelity testing asimportant parameters for the Tissue Culture Plants and to provide hands ontraining, enabling them to replicate the success of Indian Plant Tissue CultureIndustry in African Countries
Dr. Neena Malhotra,Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India, Dr. PurnimaSharma, Managing Director, Biotech Consortium India Ltd. and Dr. Suman Govil,Sr. Advisor, Dept. of Biotechnology, Govt. of India were present during thevaledictory ceremony.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr.Neena Malhotra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India saidthat in India and African countries, agriculture is a significant sector toensure food security. She apprised that the Government of India has beenorganizing various training programmes to spread awareness about newtechnologies and methods in agriculture amongst farmers and trainers of boththe countries. Dr. Malhotra apprised that Green Revolution had placed India ontop of the global map and now, tissue culture technology will bring secondGreen Revolution. Dr. Malhotra highlighted that tissue culture is an importanttechnique for the growth in productivity of crops. She expressed her hope thatthe training programme would help in the agricultural development of AfricanCountries.
Addressing the gathering, Dr.Suman Govil, Sr. Advisor, Dept. of Biotechnology, Govt. of India said thatthe five day training has helped the participants from African countries togain training and knowledge about Tissue Culture. Subsequently, they willutilize this information for development of agriculture in their country. Sheemphasized that tissue culture is an important tool and stressed thatdiversification in crop cultivation is needed. Dr. Govil averred that there isstill lot various areas in this domain which requires research and innovation.
Sharing her views, Dr. PurnimaSharma, Managing Director, Biotech Consortium India Ltd. said that suchtraining programmes are important for nutrition and economic food security. Shefurther lauded the efforts of Amity University for conducting the trainingprogramme and praised the research and innovation work by the Researchers &Scientists of Amity.
Mr. Halilu Buba Tambulthanked Government of India, BCIL and Amity University and said that he hasgained lot of information and knowledge about new agricultural techniques. Hementioned that after this training, he feels empowered and capable tocontribute significantly for the development of his Nation.
During the day, theparticipants were taken for a campus round wherein they appreciated theincubator facility, laboratories, state of art library and contemporaryinfrastructure of Amity.