Kalita Developing Research Programs for BHU, India
As part of the Agricultural Innovation Partnership (AIP), Dr. Prasanta Kalita, ACES Professor of Soil and Water Resources Engineering, is working with Banaras Hindu University (BHU).
Kalita is helping this university establish its own research program in natural resource management. He will be looking at best management practices for crop production and environmental management in India and assisting BHU in developing technologies to improve the soil and water quality in India. The Ohio State University and Cornell University will join in the research efforts with Kalita. Additionally, Kalita along with Animal Sciences Professor Walt Hurley and Ms. Cheelan Bo-Linn of the UI’s Center for Teaching Excellence will be helping BHU establish its own Center for Teaching Excellence. BHU is located in North Central India in southeast Uttar Pradesh.
On December 19-21, 2011, Kalita participated in a collaborative workshop as part of the AIP, “Harnessing Agricultural Education and Research for Rural Development,” in New Delhi, India. This workshop allowed partners to review their progress thus far, and formulate plans for achieving AIP’s overall goal to enhance India’s food value-chain by expanding the capacities of state agricultural universities. Kalita spoke at the workshop about trends in agricultural science and biotechnology curricula at U.S. land-grant universities.
Kalita says, “This recent meeting was eye-opening and helped the partners become more focused on our individual roles as part of the overall AIP project. It also gave us the opportunity to meet with various industry and governmental officials from India who have much interest in the project.” Specifically, Kalita will be working closely with TATA Chemicals Ltd., the industry leader in India.
Additionally as part of the workshop, he had the opportunity to meet USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, and all participants were invited to a gathering at the U.S. Ambassador to India, Delhi’s residence.
AIP is a $9.6M USAID grant led by Cornell University. Other partners, besides the University of Illinois College of ACES, are: University of Georgia, Ohio State University, Tuskegee University, University of California-Davis, John Deere, TATA Chemicals Ltd, and Sathguru Management Consultants.