| No. 1445 | 17 December 2010 |
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ICRISAT-Bamako Celebrates Annual Day
Team ICRISAT at Bamako during the Annual Day celebrations.Following closely on the heels of Annual Day celebrations at Headquarters, ICRISAT-Bamako celebrated our 38th Anniversary on 13 December. The event took place at a Malian camping site with lush greenery.
In his speech, Country Representative Bonny Ntare thanked all staff members for their dedication during the year and outlined the focus of the new ICRISAT Strategic Plan to 2020 and the management structure effective January 2011.
The Chief Guest for the day was Director General of the Institut d’Economie Rural, Dr Bino Teme, who reiterated IER’s support to ICRISAT in its mission to eradicate hunger in the semi-arid tropics. Other invited guests included the Director General of Institute du Sahel (INSAH) and the coordinators of hosted institutions (AVRDC, ILRI and ICRAF).
Ten staff members received Loyalty Awards, which were presented to them by the invited guests. Among the awardees were Country Representative Bonny Ntare and Principal Scientist Fred Rattunde who have both completed 20 years with ICRISAT. Among the NRS, Anderson Chekaraou (responsible for Finance) completed 25 years and Marthe Dembele was awarded for 20 years.
Country Representative Bonny Ntare and Marthe Dembele receive Loyalty Awards at the Bamako function.
All awardees paid tribute to ICRISAT for giving them the opportunity to serve such a great institution. The long serving awardees likened ICRISAT to a second mother who has provided them the care and a healthy work environment in which to blossom.
SP Wani in 12th Five-year plan working group
SP Wani has been nominated as a Member of the Working Group on Minor Irrigation and Watershed Management for the formulation of India’s Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-2017), which was constituted by the Water Resources Division, Planning Commission, Government of India, New Delhi.
The Terms of Reference for the Working Group will be:
- Examine critically the physical and financial performance of the sectors of the 11th Plan and suggest strategies, priorities and fund allocations for the 12th Plan
- Examine the performance of the Integrated Watershed Management Program (IWMP) based on the newly formulated Common Guidelines, 2008
- Examine the performance of the National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) and suggest measures for strengthening its role
- Assess the scope of a programmatic convergence between IWMP, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and minor irrigation projects.
Watershed team gets Best Paper Award
The paper Evaluation of Watershed Development Programmes in India Using Economic Surplus Method authored by K Palanisami, D Suresh Kumar, SP Wani and Mark Giordano published in Agricultural Economics Research Review has been awarded the Best Paper Prize by the Dr RT Doshi Foundation Awards. This is the second such award for the watershed team in 2010.
Congratulations to all!
ABI participates in Villgro Unconvention 2010
SM Karuppanchetty makes a presentation at the meet.
Agri-Business Incubator (ABI-ICRISAT) participated in the Villgro Unconvention on 3 and 4 December at Chennai, India. Along with ABI, its co-business incubation partners Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) and Anand Agricultural University (AAU) participated.
The two-day event saw a confluence of social entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, ecosystem players, and a miscellaneous set of people either connected with the social enterprise sector or aspiring to know what it is. Villgro’s primary function is to identify innovations that impact the rural population and devise go-to-market strategies, thereby creating a viable product or service and market out of the innovation. More than 200 delegates participated in the event.
Villgro Unconvention, an annual platform that celebrates social entrepreneurship has four distinct sections—Wantrapreneur (business plan competition for startups), Innohub (showcase of social innovations), the Summit (panel discussions and workshops), and Investor Forum (connecting entrepreneurs to investors). Villgro Awards in seven categories (lifetime achievement, social enterprise, investor, incubator, grassroot innovator, media and journalist) identifies the social enterprise network that contributed immensely to social entrepreneurship in the previous year.
SM Karuppanchetty of ABI- ICRISAT presented on Incubation: opportunities, challenges and models of nurturing start-up social businesses. During this session he brought out the benefits of social entrepreneurship and its key role in rural upliftment.
The other participants at the session were Ms Lakshmi Vaidyanathan, Senior Vice President, Rural Technology Business Incubator (RTBI); Mr Richard Alderson, Director-UnLtd India; Dr Ashok Das, Consultant, Climate Technology Program- Info Dev; Mr Rajeev Aggarwal, Director, Centre for Innovations and Technology Transfer, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).
ABI-ICRISAT and its co-business incubation partners promoted Network of Indian Agri- Business Incubators (NIABI) during the exhibition and facilitated its clients for business development, partnership and capacity building of managers. Technology commercialization was facilitated for Anand Agricultural University (AAU) and business development for Kazhi Kadaimadai Farmers Federation.
The event also created a space for discussion on Info Dev Community of Practice (CoP)- Access to Finance. Mr Paul Basil, Villgro and Karuppanchetty set the ball rolling. They highlighted the objectives of the meeting, which were to find the key challenges that entrepreneurs face in accessing finance, information, data base; and ways to form a stronger community. Ten lead funding institutions participated and shared their experiences. The key outcome that emerged from the meeting was that there is a very strong need for networking and partnering among the various stakeholders in the agri-space.
VR Kiresur to be ‘Accredited Faculty’ of ANGRAU
VR KiresurCongratulations to VR Kiresur, Senior Scientist (Economics), GT-IMPI, who has been nominated as ‘Accredited Faculty’ of the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Hyderabad in recognition of his rich expertise in the field of Agriculture and Agribusiness Management. Earlier, he was also Accredited Faculty in the field of Agricultural Economics. With this, he is eligible to guide research of scholars working towards their doctorate and Masters degrees, as Chairman in the field of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Management at ANGRAU.
Prior to joining ICRISAT in 2008, Kiresur served ICAR as Scientist at Directorate of Oilseeds Research, Hyderabad and later as Professor in the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad wherein he guided 4 PhD students and 11 MSc students. It may be recalled that Kiresur had received the prestigious ICAR Young Scientist Award in 1999 and IARI Merit Medal for outstanding doctoral research from Mother Teresa in 1993.
