LUDHIANA,
Navaneetha Krishnan, a Ph.D student of the School of Agricultural Biotechnology, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), has been awarded the “Best Presenter Award” for the oral presentation at the “6th International Agriculture Students Symposium,” held at the University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia, from February 4-9. He presented a paper on “Utilising marker-assisted selection for incorporating blast and bacterial blight disease resistance in the rice variety CO43” based on his Master’s research work, carried out at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.

Navaneetha joined Ph.D in PAU on Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Senior Research Fellowship, but later on won two other National Fellowships including UGC-CSIR Junior Research Fellowship and Department of Biotechnology (DBT)-Junior Research Fellowship (JRF). He is presently availing DBT-JRF for pursuing his Ph.D. research under the supervision of Dr Parveen Chhuneja, Senior Molecular Geneticist-cum-Director, School of Agricultural Biotechnology, PAU. His research project focuses onidentifying major effect genes/QTL for heat tolerance component traits from wild wheat Aegilopsspeltoidesand transfer to popular bread wheat cultivars through marker assisted selection.

The Vice-Chancellor, Dr Baldev Singh Dhillon and the Dean Postgraduate Studies, Dr S.S. Kukal congratulated the PAU student and wished him all success in future.