Dr MS Swaminathan Award for PAU prof
Dr VP Sethi, professor and former head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), has been conferred with the prestigious ‘Dr MS Swaminathan Award’, in recognition of his outstanding achievements and exemplary contributions to the field of mechanical engineering, particularly in advanced engineering solutions for agricultural and allied sciences.
Dr Sethi, received the award at Himalayan Forest Research Institute (HFRI), Shimla, held as part of the 13th International Conference on ‘Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry and Allied Sciences for Sustainable Himalayan Ecosystem’, held recently this month.
The conference was jointly organised by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education; HFRI, Shimla, and the National Medicinal Plant Board, GoI, in association with the ICAR National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) and the Indian Society of Agriculture and Horticulture Research Development, New Delhi.
Prof Mahavir Singh, Vice-Chancellor of Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, conferred the award on Dr Sethi. The organisers conveyed that the prestigious award had been given to only one eminent scientist above the age of 55, for significantly and consistently performing to bring visible change in transforming and adding knowledge to various stakeholders, particularly agriculture.
During the past over three decades, Dr Sethi had done a commendable work and contributed enormously for scientists and researchers of the next generation through high-impact publications, particularly an international book on ‘Greenhouse Engineering: Software-driven Design and Modelling for Optimal Microclimate Control’. The book covers almost entire domain areas of currently needed digital technologies to transform existing controlled environment agriculture (CEA) into futuristic AI-driven greenhouse smart agriculture (GSA), thereby creating an ecosystem for bringing 2nd digital revolution with AI-based farming such as robotics, automation, ML/IoT and software-based solutions.
