 Hi, welcome to the course on Integrated Pest Management or IPM. I am Dr. Prabhuraaj A, Professor of Entomology in the University of Agricultural Sciences Rai Chur Karnataka and the instructor in charge for this course. What this course is about? You know the pest are basically the herbivorous insects cause a serious economic damage to the crops, posing a serious challenge to the sustainable agriculture across the globe. So, in order to combat this menace, many a times the farmer will resort to the chemical means of control. So, going for an indiscriminate application of the pesticides and we all know the ill effects of the indiscriminate use of pesticides such as causing an ecological imbalance and poisonous food and the environment and along with that the insects developing a resistance against many of these chemical pesticides. But age old farmers if you look at it, so they use to relay less upon these chemical means and integrating with the other means of the control measures, but however they were quite unscientific. Hence, the concept of integrated pest management wherein the different components of the pest management were integrated in a scientific way in order to check the pest level at a level below the economic injury. Now, what are we going to deal in this pest management course? We are going to start with the basic aspects about the insects like its categories based on the various parameters how the pest has been actually categorized and we are also dealing about how to survey the pest, how to do the surveillance, what is the importance of the surveillance and what are the methods we employ in doing the survey and what are its applications. Then we are going into the principles of the pest management and then the integrated pest management system, its definition and little bit history about the integrated pest management. And then we are explaining about the various components of the integrated pest management and how these components are integrated into the pest management system. And finally, we are giving a glimpse about the successful IPM cases on various crops in India. So, I am going to deal with certain parts of this course such as going for the highlighting about what is the insect, its abundance and diversity and why certain groups of insects are pestiferous, what are the different categories of pest which gets into it and then the host plant resistance and the biological control aspect. And along with me two more faculty members are there. So, who are going to deal with the different aspects about integrated pest management. So, the faculty that I am going to introduce is Dr. B. V. Patil. Hello, I am Dr. B. V. Patil, Director of Education University of Agriculture Sciences, Raichur Karnataka, basically an entomologist. I worked on the pest management of field crops for the last 34 years. I will be dealing in this course on the ecological methods of pest management and how chemicals have to be integrated in pest management along with some success stories wherein different organizations recommendations have been already in use in the farmers field. Along with me, I have one more co-instructor, Dr. M. Bhimanna. Namaste friends, myself Dr. Bhimanna. I am working as Professor of Entomology at University of Agriculture Sciences. Right now I am heading the pesticide residue and food quality analysis laboratory, but I have been working on various aspects of pest management on crops like cotton and other vegetables. In this course, I am going to deal with the various aspects like its principles and concepts of pest management and other innovative methods in pest management programs. Now, who are all the people that who can actually register for this course? Now that our target audience are basically the anybody who is interested in the pest management course can register it, but more importantly it is the students of agricultural universities. So who have already had an exposure about the entomology are best suited for this course and apart from that faculty of the NGOs, non-government organizations who are involved in agriculture can also be a part of this course. The further the field officers of the line department of agriculture and horticulture of various states can also have the part of this course and the subject matter specialist in Krishivignanakendra's of the agriculture universities. So can enroll for this and of course the progressive farmers or the farmers who are interested in this one can be a part of this course. Now this course is for about 8 week course and it has got different schemes of evaluation. So, let me go to the scheme of evaluation for this course and the evaluation of the course is done through two quizzes. The one quiz will be in the middle of the course may be in the fourth week of the course and another at the end of the course and apart from these two quizzes there will be a one writing assignment. So, which will be at least at the third week or the fifth week of the course and there will be certificate given at the end. So, there are two types of certificates. One is about a participatory certificate wherein the students who participate into it and complete the course will be provided and the second one is a competency certificate. Those who actually pass through the quiz and as well as the writing assignment will be provided by the competency certificate and these certificates were ultimately given based on the involvement and the performance. So, end of for this course and then have a nice time. Thank you.