Dr. Ashok Kumar is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding (Plant Biotechnology), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Uttar Pradesh, India. He received his Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the BHU, where he also completed his doctoral studies. His research chiefly focuses on the effective use of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) for sustainable agricultural development, and on soil-microbe-plant-interactions. He has submitted forty-four bacterial sequences to the NCBI Genebank. Dr. Kumar has served as an editorial board member for the International Journal of Applied Agricultural Sciences and is a lifetime member of the Asian PGPR Society of Sustainable Agriculture and Society and Nature.
Dr. Vijay Singh Meena is currently working as a soil scientist at the ICAR-Vivekananda Institute of Hill Agriculture, Almora, Uttarakhand. He received his B.Sc. from SKRAU, Bikaner, Rajasthan, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. with a specializationin Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Uttar Pradesh, India. He has completed vital work on potassium-solubilizing microbes, soil biological fertility, rhizospheric chemistry, and conservation agriculture, and has published more than 45 original research articles in national and international peer-reviewed journals. In addition, he has published six books and fifteen book chapters.