NEWS & EVENTS

News

Obtiuary

The MSI records its deepest condolences on the sudden and untimely demise of one of doyens of Indian Mycology Prof.K. Natarajan on 20^th April 2008. Prof. Natarajan who has retired as Professor at C.A.S. in Botany, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai-600025, Tamil nadu, India has done his Ph.D. on soil fungi and did post doctoral studies on mushroom diversity. He has continued his research on basidiomycete taxonomy for more than 30 years and also concentrated his research on mycorrhizal studies. He has supervised several Ph.D. students towards their doctoral degree at the University of Madras. Prof. Natarajan has been associated with MSI from its inception and is an active participant in all its meetings and provided support, suggestions and helped in various capacities for the successful conduct of annual meetings and the conferences.

Other News

The 34^th Annual meeting of the mycological Society of India along with a conference on “Fungal Diversity: Impact and Exploitation” was held during 5-6^th October, 2007 at the Department of Biotechnology and Environmental sciences, Thapar University, Thapar technology Campus, Patiala-147004. The inaugural session was held at 10.30 a.m. on 5^th October 2007. Dr. Abhijit Mukherjee, Director, Thapar University inaugurated the conference and also distributed the fellowship certificates of MSI to selected Fellows. Prof.D.J. Bhat delivered the presidential address for the year 2007. He spoke on the hyphomycetous fungal diversity in Western Ghats forest based on the habitat. In the technical session I on fungal genomics and bioinformatics there were four oral papers before lunch. After lunch break in session II on fungal diversity, there were ten oral presentations. The MSI conducted the Annual general body meeting in the evening to elect the new office bearers for the year 2008. On the second day (6-10-2007) there were two sessions. Session II was on fungal secondary metabolites and industrial mycology. There were ten oral presentations on the above mentioned aspects. Technical session IV was on plant fungal interaction. There were six interactive papers on this subject. In the two days 30 oral contributions and 57 posters were presented. A total number of 100 delegates from all over the country attended the conference. The Prof.M.J. Thirumalachar best oral presentation awards for young mycologists below the age of 35 were presented to N. Sivaramiah, Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Jaipur – 302 001 and K. Malarvizhi, C.A.S. in Botany, University of Madras, Chennai-600025. Apart from this the organizers of the conference gave two awards for best posters to G. Ramesh, Thapar Univesity, Patiala-147004 and Sanjeev Kumar, Dept. of Botany, University of Jammu and Kashmir – 180006.

The next meeting of MSI along with a conference will be held at C.A.S. in Botany, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai-600025, India. Enquiries could be made with Prof.J. Muthumary, Secretary, MSI at mm_j@rediffmail.com

FELLOWS OF MSI 2007

The Mycological Society of India in its 32nd Annual meeting and conference conducted at Bangalore during January 2006 has announced constitution of Fellows of MSI. Accordingly applications were sought and after screening by a panel of experts, 4 eminent mycologists, viz. Dr.Sudhakara Reddy, Dr.P.C. Jain, Dr.V.V.Sarma and Dr.S.K. Deshmukh. been selected as Fellows for the year 2007. The Certificates were issued at the 34th Annual meeting of the MSI held at Patiala, during October 2007.

Mycological Society of India has constituted two special lectures which are delivered during the annual meeting of the MSI. These are, ˜Shome Memorial Lecture" and "Agnihotrudu Endowment Lecture". These awards are given to eminent mycologists who have contributed immensely to the science of mycology. The Shome-Memorial lecture for the year 2006-2007 was delivered by Dr.S. Shishupal, Bangalore and the Agnihotrudu Endowment lecture was delivered by Dr.K.K. Janardhanan, Amla Cancer Research Centre, Thrissur. The next meeting of MSI along with a National Seminar will be held at C.A.S. in Botany, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai-600025, Tamil Nadu, India during November-December 2008. In addition, the MSI confers distinguished Fellowships to eminent members. Every year applications are received and through a review process the Fellows are selected.