114th Foundation Course for Agricultural Research Service (FOCARS) was inaugurated at ICAR-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) on July 7, 2025. Dr. Himanshu Pathak, Director General, International Crop Research Institute for Semiarid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad participated as a Chief Guest, while Dr. H.P. Singh, Former Deputy Director General (Hort. Sciences) participated as Guest of Honour. Dr. HP Singh, gave a talk on “Scope of Peri-urban Horticulture: In the context of Amritcal 2047“, apart from blessing the budding scientists with his motivational speech. He highlighted the challenges faced by the contemporary agriculture such as need for feeding increasing population, limited availability of natural resources, need for sustainable use of natural resources and the need for facilitating resilience in agriculture through cutting-edge research programmes. He also emphasized the importance of participatory teaching and training. Dr. Himanshu Pathak, while congratulated the young scientists for their selection in prestigious Agricultural Research Service (ARS) motivated the budding scientists by advising them to justify the path they travelled to reach this place; not to allow difficulties to surpass their ambition; to work in a team; to do the things differently in order to achieve many milestones in their career. Dr. Gopal Lal, Acting Director, ICAR-NAARM gave an account of FOCARS and the activities of the Academy, and administered the oath of the young probationers. ICAR-NAARM regularly organizes Foundation Course for the new scientists of ARS. Incidentally, this 114 FOCARS has 105 participants, representing 41 disciplines of ARS and 21 states of the Country. Dr. R Venkattakumar, Principal Scientist and Head, Extension Systems Management (XSM) Division and Dr. Umesh Hudedamani, Principal Scientist, Research Systems Management (RSM) Division of the Academy are the Couse Directors.
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