JORHAT, June 13 - The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-North East Institute of Science & Technology (CSIR-NEIST), at Pulibor here, organised a webinar recently as part of the institute�s endeavour to reach out to 500 villages of the North East under the aegis of its flagship project �Science and Technology Intervention in North Eastern Region� (STINER), a DoNER Ministry-sponsored project.
A CSIR-NEIST press note stated that the webinar was attended by CSIR-NEIST Director Dr G Narahari Sastry apart from other experts including Dr K Karthikeyan, CEO of the North East Agriculture Technology Entrepreneurs� Hub (NEATEHUB) at Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, and Prof V Ravishankar, Director of the National Institute of Design, Jorhat.
Dr Sastry, in his address, said that the main goal of STINER was to bring all relevant rural technologies, which were ready for translation to the field and were lying at the disposal of CSIR-NEIST, to the reach of farmers and artisans in rural areas of the North East so that the quality of their profession can be boosted.
He said villages have always played a significant role since ancient civilization, and in the current scenario too, they were a growth engine as India�s economy was agriculture-driven.
Dr K Karthikeyan said there was a great urgency for developing and nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem to promote enterprises and start-ups in the agricultural sector and create more jobs to alleviate the mounting unemployment issue.
Prof Ravishankar spoke about the importance of marketing a product in which the role of packaging was cardinal in creating a brand by starting from the commodity to creation of a product. He highlighted design education and design services for a meaningful and sustainable development of mankind by means of indigenous technologies.
The participants � numbering around 300 � had a volley of questions ranging from types of crops to be grown depending upon soil and climate type, augmentation of yield, linking up to prospective buyers, value-addition of agricultural produce and augmentation of quality of agro products, marketing, post-harvest management, etc.
