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This is the Inaugural Address for the International Conference on Plant Nutrition being held 11-13 August 2010 at the Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT. The main organizers of the conference are ICRISAT and Infinitus Agri; the theme is “Plant Nutrition for Another Green Revolution.” The Chair of the organizing committee is William Dar; the Convener is Y Durgaprasad of Infinitus Agri. The original title of the manuscript is “Soil Health and Plant Nutrition: Critical Drivers for Food Security.” William D Dar Director General, ICRISAT In this part of India, you will see first-hand the severity of the problems of plant nutrition and soil health in the tropics, and how we in the Institute strive to address them to ensure the food and nutritional security of the poor and hungry. Being experts in the area of plant nutrition, you are well aware of its intricacies and importance in sustainabl...

MANILA - Can you keep a secret? I have more than 100 of Jose Rizal secrets. My hero! By  secrets , I don't mean like Rizal's abrupt departure to Spain he and his brother  Paciano  kept secret even to the rest of the family and  Leonor Rivera , his fiancée, or that he was buried in a secret grave at the Paco Cemetery, or that he had a secret in the lamp he handed to his sister before they executed him in a very public place. Almost everyone knows those. The Rizal secrets I am about to tell you are more my discoveries than anything else. Like award-winning Filipino painter  Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo 's portrait of Rizal as a young man (he is 22 years old here), this essay is my portrait of Rizal as his own man as revealed in some aspects of his life, works and writings that have been either rejected, ignored, unnoticed, not considered, or not known by most people, including historians and Rizalists. You know, I'm sure, that Jose Rizal was executed by a firing ...

If they get Rated O, Outstanding overall, for 2008, I wouldn’t be surprised. They were Rated O by the World Bank for the years 2006 and 2007, #1 among 15 international agricultural research centers supported by CGIAR, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research based in Washington DC. Doing their best doing their science. I’m referring to ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics based in  India . Team ICRISAT is what they have formed of themselves; partners are what they have sought for with other offices and institutions in  India  to serve the poor farmers in the SAT, semi-arid tropics. If they can do it in  India , they can do it anywhere. While I’m confining it to  India , this is a story of those collaborations. For anyone to have an idea how steeped into the fabric of Indian science ICRISAT is, I have decided to compile a list of the Institute’s allies, Indians only, a total of 180 (no, not by any mea...