ABSTRACT
India is primarily an agricultural country. More than 70% of the population live in villages and earn a living from agriculture or an agriculture-based profession. The history of plant diseases is as old as agriculture itself. Plant diseases have great impact on the lives of human beings and animals. They modify the habits of human beings, affect the standard of living for individuals and their communities, and sometimes affect
the economy of an entire country. Certain famines in India were the result of severe outbreaks of plant diseases in crops due to the introduction of pathogens from outside of the country. The famous example, the Bengal Famine of 1943, was the result of an epiphytotic outbreak of
Helminthosporium
blight in paddy; about 2 million people died of starvation. According to Padmanabhan,
the Bengal Famine was the most devastating outbreak of paddy brown spot that has been recorded in plant pathology literature. Most of the time, the plant pathogens are introduced in India through seeds and plant propagation materials.
