Annual Review & Planning Meeting for Pearl Millet in South Asia

The Annual Review – 2010 and Planning – 2011 meetings of theICRISAT- HOPE project for Pearl millet (South Asia region) was held on 20 December 2010 at ICRISAT. Twenty five participants, including NARS partners, representatives from the private sector, and ICRISAT scientists attended the meetings. They were organized in two sessions, progress reports – 2010 and work plan development – 2011, both chaired by OP Yadav, Project Coordinator, All India Coordinated Pearl Millet Improvement Project (AICPMIP), Mandore, Rajasthan.

Oscar Riera-Lizarazu, GTL-Biotechnology, welcomed the participants and briefed them about the objectives of the meeting. SK Gupta and Rajan Sharma presented progress reports for the activities carried out during 2010 for objectives 3 and 6 respectively, followed by presentations from the NARS partners in Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat states, where the project is being implemented in India.

This was followed by discussions on activities to be undertaken in the second year of the project and the finalization of the work plan for 2011, which was done with active participation from the private sector. Govind Kelkar, Gender consultant, made a presentation on “A Gender Plan of Action for empowerment of women” to sensitize the group about gender issues in the project. In his concluding remarks, George Okwach congratulated the team for successfully accomplishing most of the tasks committed for 2010, despite difficulties encountered during the 1st year of the project. The meeting ended with a vote of thanks by Dr KN Rai.