11^th Institute Research Council (IRC) meeting of ICAR-NIASM was held on June 22, 2021 through web conferencing system. The meeting was chaired by Dr Himanshu Pathak, Director, NIASM. Dr S R Gadakh, Director Research, MPKV Rahuri; Dr M Maheshwari, Former Head, Division of Crop Improvement, ICAR-CRIDA; Dr K N Bhilegaonkar, Principle Scientist and Station In-charge ICAR-IVRI, Pune; Dr Pradip Dey, Principal Scientist and PC (STCR), ICAR-IISS, Bhopal and Dr M S Meena, Principal Scientist, ICAR-ATARI, Jodhpur participated in the meeting as resource persons in different disciplines.

        The action taken report on 10^th IRC recommendations was presented by Dr Jagadish Rane. The achievements of the institute during the past year was briefed by Dr Pathak. This was followed by presentation by the Heads of the Schools who briefed about the respective school research programmes in addition to the Institute Flagship projects.  Subsequently the Principal Investigators presented the progress and targets of the Umbrella projects and In-house projects. The Chair invited suggestions from the resource persons for further improvement in the research programme. Dr Gadakh referred to abiotic stress tolerant varieties released by SAUs to be used as reference in all screening experiments and also emphasised need for improvement over already proposed integrated farming system models for water scarce region. Dr Pradeep Dey stressed on different agro-ecological features as background for abiotic stress management. Dr Maheshwari suggested quantification of stress level as a routine practice for all the research experiment on abiotic stresses. Dr Bhilegaonkar opined that livestock should be integral component of flagship and umbrella research programmes, which address abiotic stress in general and water scarcity in particular.  Dr Meena suggested following prescribed format for collection of farmers opinion on existing and novel agricultural technologies aiming at enhancing the farmers income. The meeting was ended with vote of thanks by Dr Neeraj Kumar.