Noted scientist Ajay Kumar Parida was  cremated with full state honours

By Akshya Rout

Jajpur, July 20 : Noted scientist and the Director of the Institute Of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar Ajay Kumar parida was  cremated with full state honours at  Bhagabanpur Under Dharmasala Block In Jajpur district on Wednesday.

The collector of Jajpur,  Chakravarti Singh Rathore, Superintendent of Police , Jajpur , Rahul P.R ,  minister Pritiranjan Ghadei , minister Pramila Mallick ,  Social worker Engineer Taraprasad Mishra a large number of villagers,  officials and leaders of the area gathered to pay their last respects to the scientist.

 A contingent of the Police reversed arms and fired a volley of shots in the air to bid farewell to the departed  scientist.  Earlier, the body  was taken to his home, where heart-rending scenes were witnessed as family members and people from surrounding areas mourned the death of the  scientist.

Born in Bhagabanpur village of Jajpur, Parida was conferred with Padma Shri in 2014 for his contribution to the field of Science and Technology.

A native of Bhagabanpur village in Jajpur district, Dr Parida was conferred with Padma Shri for his contribution in the field of Science and Technology in 2014. Known for his contributions in the fields of agriculture, plant molecular biology and biotechnology, he had served as the Executive Director of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai during 2009-2016. In 2017, he joined ILS, now a part of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), jointly initiated by the Ministry of Health and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) to monitor the genomic variations in coronavirus.

Dr Parida’s research focused on developing climate resilient crop varieties with abiotic stress tolerance. He had made a significant contribution in identifying stress tolerant genes specifically for salt and drought stress using mangroves.

He had implemented a number of developmental projects that aimed at evolving models for sustainable development in fragile coastal and dry land regions through identification of low water requiring genotypes, effective management of water resources and sound agriculture practice.

An alumnus of Utkal University, he had done PhD from Delhi University and Post-Doctoral Research from the University of Wales, UK, University of Naples, Italy and International Rice Research Institute, Philippines.