The diamond jubilee of the Indian Journal of Anaesthesia: A look-back, for the future.

The Indian Society of Anaesthesiologists (ISA) was born on 30th December 1947 as the Indian Society of Anaesthetists (ISA).[12] The Society published its own journal, the Indian Journal of Anaesthesia (IJA) for the first time in July 1953.[1] To be celebrating the 60 years of publication is a proud moment for the speciality as a whole as the ISA is the second largest body of anaesthesiologists in the world.

Incidentally, during May this year, Nepal celebrated the diamond jubilee of the first ascent of the Mt. Everest on 29th May, 1953 by man. The credit for the “peak” achievement goes to Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary.

The IJA is at its peak now, having a circulation of nearly 15,000 copies and with online access available on www.ijaweb.org and www.medind.nic.in and gets almost 70,000 hits each month.[34] The IJA is PubMed indexed since 3 years and there are more citations of the articles published in IJA than ever before.

The IJA was first published from then Calcutta, under the editorship of Dr. M C. Ganguli and has progressed from being an annual issue to become bi-annual in 1958, quarterly in 1959 and bi-monthly in 1982.[1]

The increase in frequency was accompanied by increase in contributions for publication by members. At each phase of editorship in the past, there have been improvements in quality of the content. The popularity of IJA today is the result of the sweat and struggle of eminent editors over the six decades since 1953. In their enthusiasm and concern, there are instances of past presidents of ISA such as Dr. S. K. Bakshi and Dr. G. S. Talwalkar voluntarily accepting to be editors of IJA for its continued growth.[1]

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present-Jim Rohn.

It is time to celebrate and the members of the Governing Council of ISA and the Editorial Board of the IJA have been unanimous in their support for these celebrations.

The IJA plans to have year-long celebrations to commemorate the 60th year of the first publication. It is planned to have guest editorials from all past editors and extracts of landmark publications in IJA from the past issues. It is also planned to have special celebrations during the 61st Annual National Conference of Indian Society of Anaesthesiologists ISA at Guwahati during December 2013, under the guidance of the Governing Council of ISA.

The IJA, being the academic mouth-piece of ISA is grateful to all the past office bearers of ISA and members of ISA and the authors for their excellent and sustained support for all of the past six decades.

The IJA has been improving in quality and the credit largely goes to the esteemed members of the editorial board and the reviewers who have continuously provided their services during all these years. IJA intends to recognize their silent and tireless services by way of issuing certificates of appreciation. Publication and printing agencies at different times have also been great contributors to the present status of IJA.

Every growth is accompanied by certain unpleasant developments. Increase in number of ISA members, increase in cost of printing and mailing have placed enormous financial burden on the ISA. Simultaneously, there is tremendous increase in number of manuscript submissions to IJA; being bi-monthly publication, IJA is constrained to limit acceptance of articles. To overcome both of these problems, proposals are being discussed such as encouraging members to make use of online access to IJA and reduce the print copies or by members possibly providing additional financial support to IJA to lessen the financial deficit.