(1888PressRelease)
May 12, 2007 - The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) signed into being by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863 at the height of the Civil War, is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Pingali Prabhu L presently Director, Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Rome, Italy is an Indian national who has devoted his entire career to agriculture in developing countries, living and working in all three developing continents Asia, Africa and Latin America. His research and advisory work has focused on technological change, environmental externalities, and agricultural development policy.
He has published prolifically, authoring (or co-authoring) 9 books and 90 journal articles and book chapters. One of his most significant works was to quantify the human and environmental costs of pesticide use, for which he received multiple international awards.
Pingali has been the Past-President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). In 2006, he was elected Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association and was appointed to the U.S.
National Academies Round Table on Sustainability. He has co-chaired the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Panel's working group on Future Scenarios. He was Director of the Economics Program at CIMMYT, Mexico from 1996-2002. Prior to joining CIMMYT, he worked at the International Rice Research Institute at Los Baños, Philippines from 1987 to 1996 as an Agricultural Economist, and prior to that at the World Bank's Agriculture and Rural Development Department from 1982-1987 as an economist. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Food Research Institute, and an Affiliate professor at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños.
Prabhu Pingali obtained Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University in 1982 and prior to that in 1977 he obtained his Masters Degree in Economics from BITS Pilani. Today he is one among the 18 foreign associates inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in May 2007.
This proud alumnus of BITS Pilani who has brought pride to his alma mater and country says Poverty is a cause of hunger, but it is equally true that hungry people will always be poor. Hungry people cannot take full advantage of a pro-poor development strategy because hunger negatively affects health, labour productivity, and investment choices, perpetuating poverty. Investment in hunger reduction is too often seen as "welfare" whereas, in practice, it is an investment with a potential for generating high economic rates of return.
Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani is a Leading University in India today offering degrees in Engineering, Economics, Management, Pharmacy, Sciences, Engineering Technology, Information Systems, General Studies, Finance, etc presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa campuses and in the near future at Hyderabad campus. BITS Pilani also offers an array of work integrated learning programmes for HRD of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates.
