Hyderabad: Heartfulness Education Trust (HET) on Saturday signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) at Kanha Shanti Vanam – the Heartfulness Headquarters on the outskirts of the city.
A team of at least 55 state Vice Chancellors from the agricultural sector from across the country and Additional Deputy General of ICAR were present at the signing ceremony.
The MoU was signed by Kamlesh Patel ‘Daaji’ the Guide of Heartfulness and Rakesh Agarwal – Deputy General of ICAR, a release here said.
The MoU is aimed at HET offering various programmes as credit courses jointly certified as undergraduate and postgraduate curricula offered by universities and institutes under the purview of National Agricultural Research System (NARS) of ICAR (ICAR-AU system).
The courses will be free of cost with 2 credit points on the overall curriculum. The partnership is aimed at collaboration for the programme offerings of HET as Heartful Campus modules across India to all ICAR-AUs that comprise 75 state universities with 2,00,000 students in the field of agriculture.
The MoU will bring in all the university students on a meditate module that will help improve the outlook and approach towards humanity, relationships, ways towards balancing material life, approach towards occupation or profession, and developing humility, love, care and being close to divinity.
Each student will be able to connect to a Heartful Campus trainer and there are at least 1400 such trainers around the world.
The MoU intends to grant the students, staff, faculty and counsellors of colleges, institutes and universities and the administrative staff under ICAR the access to HET courses and programmes.
The courses which will be developed by HET will be aligned with the goals of education, training and research in environmental sustainability and sustainable technologies – in line with the recommendations of the National Education Policy (NEP).
Also, Internship programs for students of ICAR-approved institutions will be offered under the agreement. The students will benefit from Heartful campus modules beginning with Heartfulness meditation in their respective campuses for the betterment and well-being of these future youth of India.
As part of the agreement a three-week induction programme as recommended by ICAR shall encourage all the ICAR-AUs across India to include the ‘Start up program’. Certificates bearing both ICAR and HET logos will be issued to students for the programmes and the students will be able to earn credits for the same.
For these programmes ICAR and HET may nominate coordinators for effective implementation, the release said.
Speaking on the occasion, Kamlesh Patel ‘Daaji’ said, “HET’s mission will be to generate curricula that will provide for both theoretical and practical application in a very cohesive way.
We wish to empower our students to produce organic yields with sustainable practices so that we can preserve our environment for our future generations as well, he said.
With agricultural practices we want to intertwine the best of modern technology with ancient wisdom. I am very happy that ICAR has associated with us for a good cause and together we hope to create wonders in training, knowledge transfer and enabling research at ICAR-AUs across the country,” Daaji said.
Rakesh Agarwal said, “We believe that this MoU will take education and research in agriculture in the country to a new phase that will amalgamate the best modern practices with sustainability on the forefront and the traditional knowledge.
With India has primarily been an agricultural country, much of our pedigree yield is also exported to other countries. We need to be able to produce pedigree crops every year not only for exports but also for our people at home to relish.
I suppose the knowledge transfer and research ensuing with this partnership will facilitate quality yields for the masses at affordable price and sustainability in place,” he added.
