A healthy Badri female calf was born on 11 September 2026 through Ovum Pick-Up and In Vitro Fertilization (OPU-IVF), after a Badri embryo was transferred into a Sahiwal recipient cow. The work is a collaboration between ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal and G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, with funding from the Uttarakhand Biotechnology Council, Haldi. A second synchronised crossbred recipient is expected to deliver a Badri calf within days.
Dr Dheer Singh, Director of ICAR-NDRI, Karnal, said the technique can multiply elite female germplasm faster and support structured breed-improvement programmes. The research began in 2023, initiated under the then Vice-Chancellor of G.B. Pant University, Dr M.S. Chauhan.
The one line that explains why this matters
A cow, left to biology, produces about one calf a year. That is the ceiling on how fast a genetically superior female can pass on her genes, and it has shaped animal breeding for a century.
Artificial insemination broke that ceiling — but only for males. One outstanding bull's semen, diluted and frozen, can sire thousands of calves across thousands of kilometres. This is why nearly every national breeding programme in the world is built around elite bulls, and why India's own dairy improvement has been bull-centred since Operation Flood.
The female side stayed stuck. OPU-IVF with embryo transfer is what unsticks it. From a single genetically valuable donor cow you can recover oocytes repeatedly, fertilise them in the laboratory, and place the resulting embryos in ordinary recipient cows that gestate them. One elite female can now contribute many calves a year instead of one — and she does not have to carry any of them.
Get that contrast right and most questions on the subject answer themselves: AI multiplies the sire; OPU-IVF and embryo transfer multiply the dam.
Step by step, as it was actually done
The release describes the full chain, and each step has a name worth knowing.
1. Ovum Pick-Up. Oocytes — immature egg cells — were aspirated from the ovarian follicles of selected Badri donor cows by ultrasound-guided needle. The donor is alive, unharmed, and can be aspirated again. This is the key advantage over the older MOET approach (Multiple Ovulation and Embryo Transfer), which required hormonal superovulation and then flushing embryos from the uterus — harder on the animal and repeatable less often.
2. In vitro maturation. A freshly aspirated oocyte is not ready to be fertilised. It must complete maturation in culture, which in cellular terms means progressing through the arrested stage of meiosis to become a competent egg. Students revising cell division should be able to say why a gamete must undergo meiosis and not mitosis: the chromosome number has to be halved so that fertilisation restores the diploid set.
3. In vitro fertilisation. The matured oocytes were fertilised in the laboratory using semen from a genetically superior Badri bull, obtained through the Uttarakhand Livestock Development Board. Note that both parents are Badri — which is what makes the calf a genetically pure Badri animal.
4. Embryo culture. The fertilised eggs were cultured under controlled conditions until they reached a stage fit for transfer.
5. Oestrus synchronisation and embryo transfer. The recipients were synchronised — brought to the right point of the reproductive cycle by hormonal management — so that the uterus would accept and support an embryo of that age. One Badri embryo was transferred into a Sahiwal recipient, which carried it to term.
The recipient's role is the part most often misunderstood. A recipient contributes no nuclear genes. It provides a uterus, a placenta and nutrition. The calf's genome comes from the donor oocyte and the bull's sperm. A Sahiwal cow can therefore give birth to a pure Badri calf, and the calf is no more Sahiwal for having been carried by one. The only maternal genetic contribution beyond the nucleus is mitochondrial DNA, which comes from the donor's oocyte — not from the surrogate.
Why Badri, and a correction worth carrying
Badri cattle are the indigenous hill cattle of Uttarakhand, small-framed, hardy, adapted to steep Himalayan terrain and poor forage, and low-yielding by commercial standards. Their value is not litres per day. It is the genetics: disease resistance, heat and cold tolerance, the ability to survive on what a Himalayan slope provides, and a milk marketed for its A2 beta-casein content.
Low yield plus limited numbers is exactly the combination that makes a breed vulnerable — a farmer under economic pressure replaces such animals with crossbreds, and the genetic resource thins out. Reproductive biotechnology lets conservation move faster than that attrition. Candidates revising biodiversity should recognise this as ex situ genetic conservation applied to a domesticated species: the breed is preserved as germplasm and rebuilt as animals.
One factual caution. The official release describes Badri cattle as "recognised as the state animal of Uttarakhand." Uttarakhand's notified State Animal is the Alpine musk deer (Moschus leucogaster), with the Himalayan monal as State Bird, brahma kamal as State Flower and burans, the rhododendron, as State Tree. If a question asks for the State Animal of Uttarakhand, answer Alpine musk deer. Treat Badri as Uttarakhand's recognised indigenous cattle breed, which it certainly is — the two claims should not be merged.
For context, India's registered indigenous cattle breeds include Gir and Kankrej (Gujarat), Sahiwal and Hariana (the north-west), Red Sindhi, Tharparkar and Rathi (the arid belt), Ongole and Deoni (the Deccan), and the two famous miniatures, Vechur of Kerala and Punganur of Andhra Pradesh. Breed registration is done by the ICAR-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR), Karnal, and indigenous breed development runs through the Rashtriya Gokul Mission, launched in 2014.
The next step the team is taking: cloning
The programme is also exploring cloning of elite, high-producing Badri cows, and cloned Badri embryos have already been generated. In the next phase, both OPU-IVF and cloning-derived embryos are to be transferred into Sahiwal, crossbred and Badri recipients.
Cloning is a different operation from IVF and the distinction is examinable. IVF is sexual reproduction moved into glassware — two gametes, two parents, a new genetic combination. Cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer is asexual: the nucleus of a body cell from the animal to be copied is placed into an oocyte whose own nucleus has been removed, and the reconstructed cell is stimulated to develop. The result carries the nuclear genome of one animal, making it a genetic copy. The technique entered public consciousness with Dolly the sheep at the Roslin Institute in 1996, the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell. ICAR-NDRI Karnal has its own record here, having produced India's first cloned buffalo calves. Anyone working through genetics and DNA should be able to explain why a clone shares nuclear DNA with its donor but may differ in mitochondrial DNA, which comes from the recipient oocyte.
Cloning copies; IVF combines. A conservation programme needs both — copying to rescue an exceptional individual, combining to keep the breed's genetic diversity alive. A breed rebuilt entirely from clones would be uniformly excellent and uniformly vulnerable to the first disease that found its weakness.
🔑 Revision block
The event. Badri female calf born 11 September 2026 through OPU-IVF, from a Badri embryo transferred into a Sahiwal recipient cow. A second delivery expected within days.
Who did it. ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, with G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar; funded by the Uttarakhand Biotechnology Council, Haldi. Director ICAR-NDRI: Dr Dheer Singh. Programme initiated 2023 under Dr M.S. Chauhan. Bull semen via the Uttarakhand Livestock Development Board.
OPU. Ovum Pick-Up — ultrasound-guided aspiration of oocytes from a live donor's ovarian follicles; repeatable, and gentler than superovulation-based MOET.
The chain. Ovum pick-up → in vitro maturation (completing meiosis) → in vitro fertilisation → embryo culture → oestrus synchronisation of recipients → embryo transfer.
The core contrast. Artificial insemination multiplies a superior bull; OPU-IVF with embryo transfer multiplies a superior cow.
The recipient. Contributes a uterus, not nuclear genes. A Sahiwal surrogate bears a genetically pure Badri calf. Only mitochondrial DNA follows the oocyte donor.
Badri. Indigenous hill cattle of Uttarakhand — hardy, low-yielding, valued for genetics and A2 milk. ⚠️ Uttarakhand's notified State Animal is the Alpine musk deer, not the Badri cow.
Institutions. NBAGR, Karnal registers indigenous breeds. Rashtriya Gokul Mission (2014) drives indigenous breed development.
Cloning. Somatic cell nuclear transfer — asexual, one genetic parent. Dolly the sheep, Roslin Institute, 1996. Distinct from IVF, which is sexual reproduction in vitro.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. OPU, in the context of animal reproduction, stands for: (a) Oocyte Preservation Unit (b) Ovum Pick-Up (c) Ovarian Puncture Ultrasound (d) Optimal Prenatal Uptake → (b).
Q2. In embryo transfer, the recipient cow contributes: (a) Half the calf's nuclear genes (b) The uterus and gestation, but no nuclear genes (c) The sperm (d) The oocyte → (b).
Q3. The Badri calf born in September 2026 was carried by a recipient cow of which breed? (a) Gir (b) Tharparkar (c) Sahiwal (d) Badri → (c).
Q4. ICAR-NDRI, the institute involved in this work, is located at: (a) Izatnagar (b) Karnal (c) Hisar (d) Anand → (b).
Q5. Artificial insemination principally multiplies the genetics of: (a) The cow (b) The bull (c) Both equally (d) Neither → (b) — which is why OPU-IVF matters for female germplasm.
Q6. An oocyte must complete which process before it can be fertilised? (a) Mitosis (b) Meiosis (c) Binary fission (d) Budding → (b) — halving the chromosome number.
Q7. The state animal of Uttarakhand is the: (a) Badri cow (b) Snow leopard (c) Alpine musk deer (d) Himalayan tahr → (c).
Q8. Which body registers India's indigenous livestock breeds? (a) ICAR-IVRI (b) ICAR-NBAGR (c) NDDB (d) CSIR-CCMB → (b) — the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources, Karnal.
Q9. Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, was produced in: (a) 1986 (b) 1990 (c) 1996 (d) 2003 → (c) — at the Roslin Institute.
Q10. The Rashtriya Gokul Mission, for development of indigenous bovine breeds, was launched in: (a) 2009 (b) 2012 (c) 2014 (d) 2018 → (c).
Q11. Which pair of Indian cattle breeds is known for exceptionally small body size? (a) Gir and Kankrej (b) Ongole and Deoni (c) Vechur and Punganur (d) Rathi and Tharparkar → (c).
Q12. Consider the following: 1. Cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer produces an animal with a new combination of genes from two parents. 2. A clone may differ from its nuclear donor in mitochondrial DNA. (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both (d) Neither → (b) — cloning is asexual, with one nuclear parent; the mitochondria come from the recipient oocyte.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Biotechnology and animal-science items in NDA papers arrive from four directions. The full-form item asks what an abbreviation means — OPU, IVF, MOET, SCNT, AI — and rewards nothing but recall. The concept item is the more valuable one: which technique multiplies male versus female genetics, whether a surrogate passes on genes, why meiosis and not mitosis produces gametes, how cloning differs from IVF. The institution item pairs a research body with its location and mandate, rotating NDRI Karnal, IVRI Izatnagar, NBAGR Karnal and the NDDB at Anand. The breed item matches an indigenous breed to its home State, where Vechur, Punganur, Gir and Sahiwal recur — and State symbols (animal, bird, flower, tree) are a neighbouring favourite.
The fresh 2026 hook is the OPU-IVF Badri calf carried by a Sahiwal recipient, which is almost tailor-made for a statement pair on whether the surrogate contributes genes. We describe the recurring pattern here, not any exact past question.
Preparing for NDA? Biology questions reward the candidate who understands the mechanism rather than memorises the headline, and this topic is a clean test of that. Build the base with our NDA biology hub, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Maj Sunil Chopra — Co-founder and faculty at The Cavalier, mentoring NDA and SSB aspirants. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk. The Cavalier, founded by ex-Army officers, has trained NDA/CDS/SSB aspirants since 2001 (Facebook · YouTube).
Source: PIB / Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, 12 September 2026. The reproductive biology, cloning science, breed registration bodies and Uttarakhand's notified State symbols cross-verified independently; note the correction flagged above on the State Animal.