Guest lecture by Department of Biotechnology, Lyallpur Khalsa College

Jalandhar, November 29, 2019: A guest lecture was organised by the P.G Department of Biotechnology, Lyallpur Khalsa College under the aegis of Mata Tej Kaur Rai Memorial in collaboration with the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan. Principal Dr Gurpinder Singh Samra duly welcomed Dr.Beant Singh Ahloowalia, Research scientist from Agriculture and Food Development Authority Carlow, Dublin, Ireland, invited as the resource person for the session along with Dr.K.S.Rai, Professor Emeritus from University of Notre-Dam, USA as special guest for the occasion. Principal Dr.Gurpinder Singh Samra presented a token of honour to the guests and stressed the need of such lectures where students acquire useful knowledge about recent innovations and technologies. Dr Samra also admired the efforts of Dr. Arun Dev Sharma (Head, Department of Biotechnology) and the entire department for arranging these kinds of special lectures. Dr. B.S. Ahloowalia in his lecture emphasized upon the need of focus on Educational reformation and healthcare sector. He talked about the use of Radiation induced mutation for crop improvement. The objective of his talk was to design the strategies to increase the yield and quality of crop through Plant breeding. He discussed various conventional and unconventional methods of plant breeding and role of mutation and mutagenesis in Evolution. He quoted many examples of mutant plants and crops like Rio red variety of grapefruit, Japanese Pear (Gold Nejisseiki), Golden Haeidegg which are improved versions. By presenting such examples and making students aware of various effects of use of chemicals, he emphasized on the use of organic farming. He supported his talk by citing 2,4 D that is used to control weeds is carcinogenic. He concluded his lecture by giving a message of using cost effective, well proven technology, free access of technology and it is followed by interactive session with students. On this occasion, Dr. Gurpreet Singh, Dr. Harsharan Singh, Prof. Gobind Ram, Dr. Inderjeet Kaur, Prof. Vijayeta Joshi and Prof. Navjot Kaur were also present. Students of B.Sc. and M.Sc. Biotechnology benefited immensely from this lecture.