New and Restructured Post-Graduate Curricula and Syllabi : Basic Sciences 2009

Abstract

Agricultural Chemicals: The discipline of Agricultural Chemicals has an edge over chemistry or agricultural chemistry as it deals specifically with agrochemicals. The first Green Revolution could become a success story due to use of pesticides along with high yielding varieties. The present day scenario for interdisciplinary approach in teaching and research and demand for more eco-friendly pesticides and other agrochemicals has necessitated restructuring the course programmes and course contents at masters and doctoral level. Objectives of restructuring the course curricula is to develop, upgrade manpower of excellence in agrochemicals to undertake and execute research and teaching in the areas of agrochemical development, formulation and safety evaluation. The course AC 501 is designed for students from outside the discipline. Courses AC 503, 504, 505 and 602 may be joint interdisciplinary courses, wherever chemistry departments separately exist. Courses from AC 503 to 506, 507/508/ 509 series will be core courses for M. Sc. students (15 credits). 601, 602 and 605 series will be core courses for Ph.D. students (8 credits). Masters level courses are designed to provide basics in chemistry and synthetic agrochemicals. Almost every course has a practical component. Choosing any course from AC 507, 508 and 509 will provide a specialization to the student in controlling insects, fungi, nematodes or weeds. The doctoral degree level courses are advanced and research oriented. The courses designed will need equipments for extraction separations, estimations, structure determination and synthesis; to cite some of them are supercritical fluid extractor, GC-MS/LC-MS, HPTLC, equipment for organic synthesis etc. Thus a one time grant of nearly Rs. 1 crores with a recurring contingency of Rs. 5 lacs per annum will be needed to run effective masters and doctoral programmes in agricultural chemicals. . Biochemistry: Course curricula and course outlines in biochemistry are designed in view of the fact that biochemistry courses are offered by students from almost all disciplines of faculties of agriculture, veterinary sciences, home science, forestry, fisheries and even technology. Thus the course Biochem 501 is a basic course to be offered to students taking biochemistry as a major or minor subject and also to students from other disciplines, who offer only one course in biochemistry. All courses are designed as per NCG guidelines and to cover all basic topics. New courses on Immunochemistry, Advanced Molecular Biology, Biochemistry of Biotic and Abiotic Stress, Functional Genomics and Metabolomics, Carbon and Nitrogen Metabolism, Current Topics in Biochemistry and Advanced Techniques in Biochemistry are framed in view of the recent developments in the subject. More emphasis is given on practicals at M. Sc level courses; the ratio of lectures to lab is 23:8 for 500 series and 14:2 for 600 series courses. Biochemistry courses are offered by a large number of students hence need small equipment in multiple numbers. To do quality teaching and research, sophisticated equipments like ultra low freezers, high speed refrigerated and ultra- centrifuges, automated bioseparation systems like GLC or HPLC and UV-Vis spectrophotometers suitable for enzyme studies, PCRs, electrophoresis systems for proteins and DNA are required for Biochemistry lab. Consumables will also be needed accordingly. In most of the SAUs, the biochemistry labs may also need renovation as per GLP norms. An approximate total budget of Rs. 5.0 lacs per annum apart from one time equipment grant of Rs. 50.00 lacs will be required. Chemistry: The present day scenario is to encourage the growth of high quality interdisciplinary research, which now thrives in many institutions. The interfaces between Chemistry (as a strong core discipline) and Physics, Biology, Materials and Engineering have strengthened. The interaction with biology for example, involves not just Synthetic Organic Chemistry but Spectroscopy, Physical, Inorganic, Theoretical and Computational Chemistry. Such interactions are essential since the major task of deriving scientific and commercial value from recent advances in genomics and proteomics require massive inputs from chemistry and computing. Similar comments apply to Photonics, Molecular Electronics, Biomaterials and Nanotechnology. In view of useful interdisciplinary research, it is essential to revise the Chemistry Courses so that the outgoing student has a better grip on interdisciplinary teaching and research. There are several recent advances in Chemistry including Green Chemistry which deals with environmental like issues involving: chemical technology of waste, pollution, solventless reactions, catalysis, biocatalysis, benign syntheses and alternate energy sources. Another recent area is modern spectroscopy, which deals with techniques like GCMS, LCMS, FABMS, which enable us to determine the molecular mass from a pinch of the compound. It is possible to arrive at the structure of the naturally occurring organic molecule by using modern techniques like 1H NMR, CMR and DNMR. The present courses have been revised to take care of the various such new areas. The revised courses cover the areas: Green Chemistry, Dynamics of Inorganic Reactions, Spectroscopy, Organic Syntheses, Computers in Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics, Polymers, Macromolecules, Catalysis, Bioorganic Chemistry, Drugs and Dyes, Reactions and Rearrangements, Photochemistry, Preparations, Analysis, Nuclear Chemistry, Nonaqueous Solvents, Colloidal Chemistry, Biophysical Chemistry; Experiments on pH meter, conductometer, potentiometer, flamephotometry, refractometer, polarography, chromatography; Natural Products Chemistry, Physical Organic Chemistry, Coordination Chemistry, Chemical Kinetics, Surface Chemistry and Thermodynamics. The UGC recommendations for PG courses have been taken into consideration in framing these courses. It is hoped that these will prove very useful to the future students. Chemistry courses are offered by a large number of students of Engineering stream besides Basic Science students. To do quality teaching and research, sophisticated equipments like GCMS, LCMS to determine molecular masss of a compound from a pinch of sample is required. NMR, CMR, can be used to determine the structure of naturally occurring organic molecule. An approximate total budget of Rs. 5.0 lacs per annum apart from one time equipment grant of Rs. 1 Crore will be required. Microbiology:Microbes are indispensable to our life. Interactions of microbes involved in soil, environment, food, fermentation, medical, or agriculture has been studied using modern techniques. New antibiotics, vaccines are also being produced. Moreover genome sequence of important genes of interest or complete sequence of microbes, plants, human beings or animals has further paved the ways for detailed study of interactions and their manipulations in the desired direction. Molecular analysis of relevant factors in the plant and microbes and components that modulate plant-microbe interactions for soil and plant health for sustaining crop productivity is now being revealed using different molecular techniques. Microbial diagnostic microarrays has been developed for the parallel, high-throughput identification of many microorganisms. Great emphasis is also being given on integrated use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides along with biofertilizers, biopesticides and biocontrol agents for sustaining modern agriculture and soil health. Biocontrol agents for control of plant diseases, insects, nemotodes have been developed and some of these are commercially available & being used by the farmers. Microbe – plant symbiosis within plant rhizosphere have come up as an effective clean up technology. Increased attention has been directed towards use of microorganisms (bioremediation) for wastewater treatment mainly decolorization of different industrial effluents, which include distillery waste, textile industries & paper & pulp industries. Microbial degradation & decolorization holds promise and can be exploited. But genetic improvement of strains can be explored in future for improving their decolorization efficiency. Some of the agro wastes are being used for the production of biofuels. Use of recombinant microorganisms for industrial production of useful compounds has reached at commercial levels. All these aspects are covered in the course curricula. Microbiology courses are offered by a large number of students hence need small equipment in multiple numbers. To do quality teaching and research, sophisticated equipment like ultra low freezers, high speed refrigerated-automated bioseparation systems like GLC or HPLC and UV-Vis spectrophotometers suitable for enzyme studies, PCRs, electrophoresis systems for proteins and DNA are required for Microbiology lab. Consumables will also be needed accordingly. An approximate total budget of Rs. 5.0 lacs per annum apart from one time equipment grant of Rs. 50.00 lacs will be required. Plant Physiology: In agricultural universities and crop specific Institutes, the major mandate is crop improvement. Therefore, post graduate degree programme in plant physiology / crop Physiology was started in many Agricultural Universities with an objective to impart required training and adequate exposure to the graduates who ultimately assist in national and state level crop improvement programmes. From this context the course curricula is constantly being modified over the years to address the issues of crop improvement by exploiting well characterized crop physiological processes. Since, last 20 years phenomenal progress has taken place in understanding the plant physiological processes at molecular level and provided several comprehensive molecular biology options to modify growth and developmental processes. Adoption of these developments necessitates a strong exposure to tools of modern biology to address specific issues of crop growth and developments. This emphasizes the need for reorientation of the courses to encompass molecular biology also as an integral component of plant and crop physiology. The course structure thus consists of: A basic course for both majoring in plant Physiology as a beginner course as well as for students choosing Plant physiology as minor subject or offering only single course. Courses are framed on various aspects of plant physiology that include physiology (with molecular bias) of plant growth and yield modeling, physiology of development, stress, post harvest, seed and weed, photosynthesis, mineral nutrition, morphogenesis, signal transduction, genome structure and functional genomics. Separate Courses on Climate Change and Crop Growth, Molecular Approaches for Improving Physiological Traits and Techniques in Plant Physiology are included as Ph. D. level courses. Plant Physiology courses are offered by a large number of students hence need small equipment in multiple numbers. To do quality teaching and research, sophisticated equipment like ultra low freezers, high speed refrigerated-centrifuge, IRGA, Consumables will also be needed accordingly.. An approximate total budget of Rs. 5.0 lacs per annum apart from one time equipment grant of Rs. 50.00 lacs will be required.