Dear Members,
Greetings to all.

First of all, let me thank you all for placing faith in me and electing me as Secretary of our Indian Society of Anesthesiologists (ISA) I with my treasurer Dr. Abdul Hameed will try to stand up to your expectations and to our promise. I believe with your support, we could build up ISA as one of the most vibrant societies of the world.

We have to achieve many tasks in the shortest possible time. We are today 21000 members strong but our individual data base is limited to 10000 members only. Our first task is to update the data base of all individual members and kindly help me in this effort.

To keep up uniform representation of Nation in ISA and to increase members participation in selection of office bears, we have introduced zonal selection of governing council members and online voting for election. Of course, compared to 5 to 6% members participation in electing their representatives, we have increased the participatory franchise exercise to 35%. Looking back, in the last 3 years we have implemented online voting and more and more members participated in the democratic process. During 2014 ISA elections more than 50% of registered members (4520 out of 8845) voted online. Manual voting percentage was negligible (only 164 members voted manually) and the GB decided not to have manual voting anymore. So, now every member has to update his data with ISA and become eligible to vote online I request all members to register for online voting at election and exercise your right to select the best person suited for our society. ISA will not be allowing on site manual election (at annual general body meeting) from 2015 and the campaign activities of candidates will be restricted safeguarding privacy of each member. Request every one of us to register for online voting and to exercise your right.

Our society is conducting multifold academic and non academic activities to bring up, the knowledge, skills, capability and financial stability of each member. Family benefit scheme of ISA is now sponsored by the National Society and the same is providing some immediate financial support to bereaving family members and this amount upon our will could be increased with more member participation. I request each member of ISA to become a member of family benefit scheme to look after you as well as our colleagues.

I have observed that the PAN of ISA National is shared in account presentation of the City/ State and since parallel use is not reported to National ISA we are liable to be penalized for concealment of accounts. Kindly refrain from using National ISA PAN and please generate your own PAN for city/ state units of ISA. If any difficulty observed in getting a PAN sanctioned, National ISA will help you the matter.

ISA plan to go for online from April 2015 onwards and all transactions in ISA including membership promotion/ database creation/ communication between all/ our periodic reports/ publication of bulletin and journal will be online from now on. We will establish an ‘ISA App’ very soon.

I am informed that some City or State units are yet to receive balance of their share of membership money and I request to inform the National Headquarters, all details of balance payment with date of payment/ mode and amount receivable. We ensure to return the balance. The national office of ISA is shifted to my residential address at Kasargod and request everyone to contact me when ever needed on my published address/e-mail or mobile for any clarification regarding any matter concerned to ISA and I hope to reply as early as possible. My last appeal at this venture to all is to request you to convey on the development plan you want for the ISA and request you all to convey your views regarding the directions for the future of ISA after deliberations in your units of ISA.

Wishing you all the very best and hope to meet you all through my next communication.