Lt Governor chairs joint session of IAUA, Gen Next foreign delegation at SKUAST

Srinagar: Lieutenant Governor, J&K UT, Manoj Sinha on Thursday released ‘Srinagar Declaration, a joint MoU of all the agricultural universities of the country, at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir.
The Lt Governor was chairing a joint session of the annual conference of the Indian Agricultural Universities Association (IAUA) and a foreign delegation of Gen Next Democracy Leaders from various countries, who were visiting SKUAST-K to interact with students.
The Srinagar Declaration is a multi-institutional memorandum of understanding for instituting postgraduate degree programs in sandwich mode for sharing national resources. The MoU will enable students of an agricultural university to pursue part of their education in another agricultural university as per their choice in a flexible manner. The SKUAST-K initiative in the form of the Srinagar Declaration was appreciated by all the visiting vice chancellors as a futuristic step towards a choice-based curriculum as envisaged under NEP-2020.
The declaration was released in the presence of the President, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe; Chief Secretary of J&K, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta; Principal Secretary, Agricultural Production Department, Shailendra Kumar; Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof Nazir Ahmad Ganai, Deputy Director General (Education), Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Dr RC Agrawal; President, IAUA, Dr Rameshwar Singh.
Lt Governor in his speech hailed SKUAST-K for taking a leadership role in changing the agricultural landscape of J&K. He appreciated the vice chancellor’s vision for developing the roadmap for Agriculture 4.0 of the UT that aims to transform subsistence agriculture into commercial agriculture for improving the living standard of the farming community.
Dr Vinay Sahasrabudhe, in his speech, hailed the digital, developmental and democratic initiatives of the Government of India that are based on the theme of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam i.e., One Earth One Family One Future.
Dr AK Mehta, while highlighting the digital initiatives and holistic agriculture policy of the J&K Government, said that the changes in the UT has brought normalcy and peace to the region. He said Govt’s focus is on future-ready agriculture that takes care of climate-resilient crops, resource use efficiency and integration of IoT, Artificial intelligence and other new-age agricultural technologies. He added the government has established a strong connection with academia to have future-ready institutions for future-ready India.
While welcoming the foreign delegates and the dignitaries at SKUAST-K,
Prof Ganai, in his inaugural speech, at the outset congratulated team Chandriyan 3 and ISRO scientists for the successful landing of Chandriyan 3 on the lunar surface that made India the 4th country to embark on this space journey indicating the advances in science and technology, and space science. He thanked ICCR for choosing SKUAST-K for this GenNext democracy networking event. Such events acknowledge the composite culture of peace, love and harmony of Jammu and Kashmir. He added that SKUAST-K is envisioning to build NextGen human capital and make Jammu and Kashmir the shining crown of India that’s focusing on education, agriculture and democratization to become the 3rd largest economy in the world.
Director Education, SKUAST-K, Prof MAA Siddiqui, who presented the vote of thanks, highlighted the university’s vision of producing the next gen human capital for driving the Agri-4.0 in J&K.
Students from various faculties of SKUAST-K interacted with the foreign delegation and asked various questions to Lt Governor, chief secretary and president ICCR.
Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, VK Bidhuri; Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar, Ajaz Assad, Vice Chancellors of sister universities from Kashmir Division, Director, SKIMS, SKUAST-K Deans and Directors, students and faculty, retired officers of the university attended the function.

KR Desk