BARC to showcase its role in agriculture

India's nuclear establishment will highlight its contributions in the field of agriculture as it celebrates National Technology Day to mark the 15th anniversary of the Pokhran-II nuclear tests.
Besides designing cutting-edge nuclear reactors for strategic and civilian use, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) plays a leading role in developing new varieties of pulses, oil seeds and also preservation of food items.
All these strides made by the BARC will be on display at an exhibition in Mumbai to mark the National Technology Day which will be inaugurated by Union Agriculture Secretary Ashish Bahuguna tomorrow.
The National Technology Day is celebrated on May 11 every year by various scientific organisations to commemorate "the unique technological breakthroughs achieved through a series of controlled underground nuclear tests" carried out at Pokhran in Rajasthan in 1998.

The theme of this year's National Technology Day celebration is 'agriculture and food security'.
"BARC has specifically carved a niche in the development of new varieties of pulses and oil seeds as they have contributed 15 varieties of groundnuts, three varieties of mustard, two of soybean and one of sunflower among the oil seeds and eight varieties of greengram, four varieties of toor , five of blackgram and one cowpea among pulses," R K Singh, Head of Public Awareness Section said in a statement.
He said BARC has developed several protocols for micro propagation -- a technique for large-scale rapid plant multiplication -- of elite varieties of banana.

The irradiation protocols developed by BARC for several food products has resulted in exports of more than 230 tonnes of mangoes to the US, Singh said.