Date: 1/01/2021

Honourable Members of the ISWS

Greetings!!!

I express my profound gratitude to all of you for electing me the President of ISWS unanimously for this second term of the year 2021-22 to 2022-23. You also casted record vote in my favour during previous election for the term of 2019-20 to 2020-21. I am beholden for your confidence bestowed on me and consider it as a reward from you for my contributions towards the Society.

I extend my gratitude to Dr. Devraj Arya as a Returning Officer for conducting the Society’s Election in unbiased and fair manner in the given time span. I am also very grateful to Dr. Shobha Sondhia, the immediate past Secretary to help the Returning Officer to update and provide all the possible help to him to conduct the elections in very smooth way.

I owe the gratitude of all my previous Executive Committee team members who worked with me shoulder to shoulder for the overall enhanced functioning of the society. We conducted many events besides organising a very memorable Biennial Conference in Goa during 5-7 February, 2020. We also started a series of Webinars from January 2021 in collaboration with ICAR-Directorate of Weed Research on important and current topics of weed science for the benefit of members of the society and other stakeholders as well. I must congratulate entire team of Editorial Board and reviewers of Indian Journal of Weed Science under the leadership of Dr. J.S. Mishra as Chief Editor for their quality inputs due to which there was an appreciable increase in the NAAS rating (5.84) of the Journal. You will also be delighted to know that more than 78 new colleagues have joined the Society during the period of 2020-21. You shall also find a significant improvement in ISWS website.

Newly elected Executive Committee has taken over the charge of the Society in a meeting held virtually on 27 April 2021 during this COVID-19 pandemic. I welcome all the fresh elected members for the next two years in the Society and hope that they all will contribute their best for the growth of the Society. Councillors recommended by the new EC for two years, representing almost each state of India have also joined and started activities related to the growth of weed science. Besides organising Webinar series in the year 2021, we also plan to organise a training course on Weed Science on virtual platform at National Level for the benefit of all the stakeholders in general and newly joined members to ISWS in particular. I request all of you to visit the ISWS website regularly to access the journals and many more information of your interest on weed science.

Please take utmost care during Covid-19 pandemic.

Wish you all the best in your endeavour in weed science and all aspects of life as well.

Sushil Kumar

President, ISWS