Release of book by His excellency Governor of Himachal Pradesh Sh. Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, Sh. Jai Ram Thakur Ji Hon’ble Chief Minister Himachal Pradesh, Sh Vipin Parmar Sh. Santa Kumar Ji, Speaker HP Vidhan Sabha and Sh. Harinder Kumar Chaudhary, Vice Chancellor, CSKHPKV, Palampur
Author: Dr. Rajan Katoch, Sr. Scientist (Biochemistry), Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding, CSKHPKV, Palampur, HP. Brief about the book
His excellency Governor of Himachal Pradesh Sh. Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar and Sh. Jai Ram Thakur Ji Hon’ble Chief Minister Himachal Pradesh, Sh. Santa Kumar Ji (Ex Chief Minister and Union Minister & MP), Sh Vipin Parmar (Speaker HP Vidhan Sabha )and Sh. Harinder Kumar Chaudhary, Vice-Chancellor, CSKHPKV, Palampur released the book written by Dr Rajan Katoch entitled “Ricebean: Exploiting the nutritional potential of an underutilized legume” which has been published by prestigious and globally renowned publisher “Springer” for worldwide release.
The book is based on research for 17 years on Ricebean legume and contains comprehensive information on production, nutritional, biochemical and biotechnological aspects of the crop.
Ricebean, locally known as “Rajmoong” was earlier considered as neglected crop as there was lack of authenticated research on this crop. Ricebean is a crop of high nutritional value and nutraceutical properties. The information contained in the book is quite relevant in the present scenario where the major global concern is on food and nutritional security.
Dr Rajan Katoch took a challenge for working on this potential crop and starting from the basic research on the nutritional constituents of this crop, advanced the research to molecular and biotechnological aspects and identified unique genes and biomolecules in this crop which are of potential use in the improvement of other crop species.
He conducted research on around 180 germplasm collections from India and abroad.
• Through 8 competitive grants for research projects and funding over 4.0 crores from the central agencies of Govt. of India, he successfully conducted research on this valuable crop.
He has been awarded twice by United State Department of Agriculture (USDA), USA
for his unique work on Ricebean crop. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Ministry of Agriculture &
Farmer welfare, Govt. of India, New Delhi has considered this book as reference work
on underutilized crops.
The information in the book would motivate and persuade policymakers, scientists. students and researchers for harnessing the potential of rice bean and meeting the objective of global food and nutritional security.