Dr. P. RETHINAM earned his Graduation and Post-graduation in Agriculture from the Agricultural College and Research Institute and Doctorate in Agronomy from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. He started his career as Research Assistant in 1963, became Assistant Professor at TNAU and then joined Agricultural Research Service in 1976. He became the Project Coordinator, (Palms) in 1982 and Assistant Director General, Plantation Crops, ICAR, New Delhi. Dr. Rethinam was selected as the Chairman, Coconut Development Board, Kochi, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India during 2001 and subsequently elected as Executive Director of Asian and Pacific Coconut Community, Jakarta, Indonesia and served form January, 2002 to June,2006. He has bagged various Awards, Honours and Recognitions both at the National and International levels. He is a Fellow of various professional societies and has published 215 articles; co-edited two volumes of ‘Recent Advances in Plantation Crops’; edited 39 books, many Technical Bulletins and Proceedings; and developed APCC intellectual databases. Dr.V.KRISHNAKUMAR earned his Graduation and Post-Graduation in Agriculture from the College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram under the Kerala Agricultural University and Doctoral Degree in Agronomy from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. He started his career as Assistant Professor, KAU. He has worked both in the State and Central Government services as Assistant Agronomist in the Rubber Research Institute of India (Rubber Board), Kottayam (Ministry of Commerce, Govt. of India); Senior Scientist (Transfer of Technology & Agronomy and Soil Science) in the Indian Cardamom Research Institute (Spices Board), Myladumpara, Idukki, Kerala (Ministry of Commerce, Govt. of India). He joined the ICAR service as Senior Scientist (Agronomy) at ICAR- Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Kasaragod and later served as Principal Scientist (Agronomy) & Head, ICAR-CPCRI Regional Station, Kayamkulam. He was Assistant Editor, Journal of Natural Rubber Research of RRII and Editor, Journal of Plantation Crops (ISPC) during 2006-2011 and served as a member of the Editorial Board of the Annual Reports of ICAR-CPCRI and AICRP on Plantation Crops. He has edited twelve books and published more than 100 research and technical articles apart from contributing chapters in various books, technical bulletins, popular articles etc. He currently functions as a member of the Editorial Board of ‘Current Science’, a Fortnightly Research Journal, being published by the Current Science Association, Bengaluru, India in collaboration with the Indian Academy of Sciences.
