The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (icar) is the world's largest agricultural research system, but the government does not know what to do with it. In the last 30 years, 10 committees (including sub-committees, working groups and task forces) have meandered through its faults, proferring correctives. The most recent one has raised a storm in the agricultural research fraternity. Headed by R A Mashelkar, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (csir), the committee has submitted a report on re-structuring icar. The report has found icar a poor organisation in terms of research, publication excellence and fellows in the Indian National Science Academy. Based on the science citation index (paper presentation), icar scientists have presented 327 papers in 2004, with impact factor per paper at 1.071