Briefly City

Experts meet to discuss technology in farming
Electronic media can play a significant role in effective dissemination of information regarding farming and technologies,said academics related to this field. A meeting in this regard was held at Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) campus in the office of Project Director Dr A N Narula. It was attended by Dr Bipin Chand Sood and Dr Jagbir Singh Dhankhar,Director of Extension Education at C S K Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University,Palampur,and C C S Haryana Agricultural University,Hisar,respectively. Additional Director of Extension Education,PAU,Dr H S Dhaliwal also took part in the discussion. Dhaliwal said according to ICAR guidelines,a programme involving Krishi Vigyan Kendras need to be formulated to involve mobile phone service in the transfer of technology to the farming community. The team also visited the Center for Communication and International Linkages and learnt about the PAU system of communication for disseminating the latest technologies through electronic and print media. Dr Sood and Dr Dhankhar were presented with brochure of information about PAU.

Course on medicinal plants to be held at PAU from July 21
The PAU Directorate of Extension Education is organising a training course on ‘Scope of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants: Their Processing and Marketing’ from July 21-23 at Kairon Kisan Ghar wherein 25 participants will be enrolled. The course has been organised for agricultural officers,agricultural development officers and horticulture development officers. Director of Extension Education Dr M S Gill said the subject matter specialists of the university will highlight importance of medicinal and aromatic plants,discuss scope of cultivation of spices,crop production and protection tips,tissue culture techniques,processing and marketing aspects of such crops. The participants will also be made to visit herbal garden and laboratories for processing. The Technical Coordinator will be Dr B S Gill while the programme will be coordinated by Dr V K Bhambota. Meanwhile,a state level meeting of the Progressive bee-keepers will be held at PAU on July 7 wherein the bee-keepers will be provided know-how about handling and care of bee colonies,honey processing and marketing during the rainy season. The course coordinator will be Dr J S Bhalla.

PAU engineers to attend training at Moscow university
Two groups of five students each from College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology (COAE&T),Punjab Agricultural University have been nominated to attend practical training at Moscow State University of Environmental Engineering (MSUEE) and Moscow State Agro Engineering University (MSAU) under the students’ exchange programme for candidates pursuing engineering at PAU and Moscow universities. The students attended two weeks training as a part of MOU signed between PAU and Russian Universities . Dr Satish Kumar Gupta and Dr Anoop Dixit coordinated the trainings. The five students who participated in the trainings at MSUEE included Sushant Mehan,Harinder Singh,Ankit Bansal,Gurpreet Kaur and Jaspreet Kaur,while Gurbir Singh,Gurnaz Gill,Jaipreet Singh,Vishal Kumar and Varun Chaudhary experienced practical training in the discipline of agricultural engineering at MSAU. Dr Manjit Singh Kang,Vice Chancellor,interacted with the students and faculty members and elaborated the role of such international collaborative programmes helping the students in enhancing their professional skills.