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A healthy female Badri calf was born on 11 September 2026 at the Academic Dairy Farm of G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, through Ovum Pick-Up and In Vitro Fertilisation (OPU-IVF).
The embryo was produced in a laboratory from oocytes drawn from selected Badri donor cows by ultrasound-guided ovum pick-up, and was carried to term by a Sahiwal cow acting as surrogate.
The birth came out of a three-year research programme begun in 2023 by ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, and GBPUAT Pantnagar, financed by the Uttarakhand Biotechnology Council, Haldi.
Badri is Uttarakhand's hill cattle breed, formerly called the pahadi cow, and was registered by ICAR-NBAGR in 2016 as the state's first recognised indigenous cattle breed.
Scientists on the project have also produced cloned Badri embryos and are exploring the cloning of elite, high-yielding Badri cows.
Immature eggs are drawn from a living donor cow's ovaries with an ultrasound-guided probe, matured and fertilised in the laboratory, and the resulting embryo is placed in a recipient cow that gestates it.
Simple Analogy: The prized cow supplies the genetics; another cow supplies the pregnancy.
India's premier dairy research institute; produced India's first cloned buffalo calves in 2009 and works on assisted reproduction in bovines
India's first agricultural university, established in 1960 and closely associated with the Green Revolution; host of the Academic Dairy Farm where the calf was born
National body that identifies, evaluates and formally registers India's indigenous livestock and poultry breeds; registered Badri in 2016
State biotechnology agency that financed the Badri OPU-IVF research programme
Develop and conserve indigenous bovine breeds, genetically upgrade the bovine population and raise milk productivity
Key: Launched in December 2014 under the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying; restructured in July 2021, it supports IVF/MOET embryo-transfer centres and sex-sorted semen along with breed-conservation work
Deliver breeding inputs and artificial insemination coverage to farmers' doorsteps
Key: The delivery network through which advanced reproductive technologies such as OPU-IVF are eventually meant to reach field-level herds
GS Paper III > Science and Technology - biotechnology applications; Agriculture and animal husbandry
General Awareness > Science and technology, and state-level current affairs
What is the application of Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer Technology?
Answer: Reproductive cloning of animals
Ultrasound-guided collection of immature eggs from the ovaries of a living donor cow, repeatable without harming the animal.
A cow into which a laboratory-produced embryo is transferred and which carries the pregnancy to term; here a Sahiwal cow carried a Badri embryo.
Milk in which the beta-casein protein is of the A2 type, characteristic of Indian indigenous cattle such as Badri.