Correspondence Address:
Ashoke Kumar Basu
Department of Pediatric Surgery, Institute of Child Health, Kolkata, West Bengal
India

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Ashoke Kumar Basu

Wishing you a very Happy New Year!

At the onset, I would like to thank all the members of the Indian Association of Paediatric Surgeons for entrusting on me the responsibilities of the editor in chief of its journal. I also thank all the past editors in chief. They have truly set the benchmark high for me and for all future editors in chief. Special mention must be made of the contributions of Prof D. K. Basak, Prof S. Das, and most importantly Prof S. K. Chatterjee whose efforts have been instrumental in the survival of the journal for the first 9 years after its inception in 1994.

I have served this association in various capacities such as state executive committee member, state secretary, state president, central executive committee member (twice), and national president. I have had the honor of being associated with this journal since its inception and have held the post of editorial secretary for 9 years. I have also had the unique pleasure of being a part of the editorial team ever since its inception over two decades ago.

The journal is in good academic and financial health. Our focus right now is to improve the status of the journal. I propose to achieve this by a twofold approach. First, to publish good original and review articles and second, to increase the number of issues to six annually. This will enable the journal to attain a higher citation index, which in turn will improve its impact factor number.

In India, there are 52 centers imparting postdoctoral training and teaching in pediatric surgery. In addition, there are many more active nonteaching centers of repute throughout the country. If each of these centers contributes even one original scientific article per year, we will have more than enough material to publish six issues in a year. I request the heads of each of these institutes to ponder on this and help the journal achieve higher glories.

I humbly request the senior author of the articles to kindly scrutinize each article prior to their submission to the journal. The check should include content, grammar, purpose of presentation, and plagiarism. This will reduce the turnaround time of the articles largely.

The post of editor in chief carries with it great responsibilities, and I will do my best to meet the expectations of all its members. I look forward to working with all the members, and over the next 5 years, together, we will take the journal to new heights.