IASP celebrated its silver jubilee last year in 2009. The Silver Jubilee Year Conference was organized by the Department of Psychiatry, Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj (CSM) Medical University at its Convention Centre at Lucknow on 15-17 November 2009 under the leadership of. Professor J K Trivedi. Dr Vivek Agarwal and Dr Anil Nischal were the Organizing Secretaries of the conference. The conference was cosponsored by the World Psychiatric Association. The theme of the conference was Mental Health: Prioritizing Social Psychiatry’. The conference was attended by over one hundred and fifty mental health professionals from not only India but also from different parts of the world including USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka

IJSP is currently being published from Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi with Professor V.K. Sinha as the current editor. The issues from the year 2006 onwards can be freely accessed on the Association’s website. Prof V.K. Sinha has brought out issues of the journal for the year 2009 and those for 2010 are also ready All the old issues have been dispatched to the membership. I would like to request the members to send their research work for publication to the Journal. Members who have presented papers in this conference must also send their manuscripts for publication, which could then be peer reviewed for publication. The work done by Prof Sinha is creditworthy and he deserves full appreciation from the membership.

Dr Adarsh Kohli, Hon Treasurer, IASP has been doing a wonderful job. She has been able to clear the back log of audits of accounts of IASP since 2004, which could not take place earlier as the previous treasurer had not transferred the balance to the new office. IASP has also applied for PAN No. The financial position of the Association has improved a lot under the treasurership of Dr Kohli.

Many of our members had had distinguished achievements in the last year. Prof K Roy Abraham was elected Secretary General of the world association for Social Psychiatry (WASP). Prof Roy Abraham was also the Chairperson, WASP’s New Member Societies Development Committee. Prof T Murali, a senior fellow of the IASP has been elected Vice President of the World

Association for Psychosocial rehabilitation for 3 years. Our members Sharita Shah, Rudra Prasad Chakraborty, Arshad Hussain and other received Young Psychiatrist Fellowship for WASP Marrkech. Prof SD Sharma, Roy Abraham Kallivayalil and JK Trivedi represented IASP at the General Assembly of WASP at Marrakech.

Council meetings held and important decisions taken during the years 2009 –2010:
During the year under review, two meetings of the Executive Council were held on 18.1.2010 at Jaipur and at 1.8.2010 at Delhi. EC has decided that corpus for various IASP awards should be put as FDs, which has been done for most of the awards. For the rest the corpus needs to be increased and will be put in FDs subsequently. Dr Joseph Varghese and Prof Roy Abraham invited the XVII National IASP conference (NCIASP 2010) to Kochi during the EC meeting held at Jaipur on 18.1.2010, which was duly approved by the Council. The EC meeting of 1.8.2010 discussed about organizational arrangements of the NCIASP 2010.

IASP has been invited to the discussion process on the proposed amendments of the Mental Health Act, 1987. Prof K Roy Abraham, President Elect, IASP and Prof R.K.Chadda, Secretary General attended the consultative meetings organized at Chandigarh and Bangalore respectively by the Ministry of Health & FW, Govt of India.

I wish to inform you that the trend of growth in our membership has been maintained throughout the period under review. As a part of membership drive we have been able to expand our membership to 591. We are paying regular dues to the World Psychiatric Association as a member society. The current membership stands as:
Fellows : 366 (Hon. Fellow: 1; Life Fellows: 336; Fellows: 29)
Associates : 225 (Life Associates: 210; Associates: 15)
Total : 591
The Organizing Committee of the NCIASP 2010 has been gracious enough to bring out the new updated directory of the IASP. Some of our members have not been paying their dues regularly. It is my earnest request to all the defaulting members to pay their dues. I would request them to become life members. I would also request all the members to bring their professional colleagues and friends to the IASP fold, to attend the conferences in more and more numbers and also to contribute to the journal of the Association.

IASP participated as a member society in the World Psychiatric Association’s survey of psychiatrists for ICD 11.

Awards:
IASP encourages scientific research by the membership. To encourage the research in various fields of social psychiatry, the Association has instituted many awards, number of which has also grown, as the Association is growing. The awards are given every year in the national conference. Last year’s winners for various awards were:

• Dr N.N.De Oration Award (to be delivered in 2010 IASP conference: Prof J.K.Trivedi
• Balint Award: Dr Nitin Gupta for his paper on “The Conundrum of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorders”
• Dr G.C.Boral Award-I: Dr Mamta Sood, Pratap Sharan, Shivanand K, A Shyamsunder, V Sreeniwas for their paper “Prospective Longitudinal Study on Duration of Untreated Psychosis in Patients with First Episode of Psychosis”
• Dr G.C.Boral Award-II: Dr. KS Pavitra, Dr KR Sridhara for their paper on “Culture and depression – a study of change and depression in Havik Brahmin women of South India”
• Dr. B.B.Sethi Award: Dr. Anil Nischal, Dr. Himanshu Sareen, Dr J.K. Trivedi for their poster “Burden of care on the key relatives of schizophrenics”
• Dr. V.K.Varma Award: Dr P.N.Suresh Kumar, Biju Thomas for the paper “ Family intervention therapy in alcohol dependence syndrome: a follow up study”

Prof J K Trivedi has raised the corpus for Dr BB Sethi Award for the two best posters presented during the national conference. Prof K Roy Abraham has raised the corpus for Dr Venkoba Rao Oration Award. IASP is grateful to them for their efforts.

IASP has a number of sub committees, which are chaired by a senior fellow and have at least 5 members. The sub committees include constitution and bye laws committee, programme committee, ethics committee, elections committee, CME committee, awards and oration committee and membership committee. All the committees have been working hard to meet the objectives of the Association. In 2008 conference, it was decided to constitute 3 task forces on ‘Mental health legislation’, ‘Mass media and mental health’ and ‘Mental health policy’. Professor R Srinivasa Murthy, Professor A K Kala and Dr U C Garg respectively are the conveners of these task forces. All the committees and task forces have been working efficiently in their areas.

In the end, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the membership, EC, members and officer bearers of the Association for entrusting me with this job and helping me in running the office smoothly. I am especially grateful to Professor R.C. Jiloha, Acting President, Professor K Roy Abraham, President Elect, Professor V.K. Sinha, Editor, Dr Adarsh Kohli, whose regular inputs have helped in rejuvenating the Association. I am also grateful to Professor S.K. Khandelwal, Member Executive Council, whom I frequently trouble for regular guidance. I would also like to thank my other department colleagues especially Prof R Ray, Head, Department of Psychiatry, Professor M Mehta, Professor P Sharan and Dr Rajesh Sagar.. I would like to express my thanks to Dr Mamta Sood, the Assistant Secretary General amd Mrs Renu Prashant, my PA who have always been helping me in running this office with full efficiency. In the end I would like to again thank all the membership of IASP, who have entrusted me with this responsibility.