Vol.02 Issue No.01 (2006): Journal of Indian Society of Toxicology
28 November 2005 was a red letter day for the Indian Society of Toxicology, and quite rightly so. After all, it marked the day of the first ever Annual Conference of the Society, the Inaugural Conference (TOXOCON-1), which hopefully will be the forerunner of many more such yearly bashes, where toxicologists of every hue, from far and wide can gather and exchange notes, as well as indulge in some light banter!
Months before the event, we of the Organizing Team began making plans and preparations. We left nothing to chance. Though we were just a small team, we more than made up for that by our lion hearted enthusiasm. Every member of the team (see the following page for details) put in his or her best effort, and toiled night and day. The biggest challenge of course, as is inevitable in organizing any conference, was to get sufficient funds. When I say sufficient, I mean just that. No more, no less. We were not looking for a huge windfall to lavish the delegates with gifts and freebies. Our aim was clear: provide good arrangements for scientific deliberations, wholesome food, and comfortable stay in serene surroundings. We decided to give the frills the short shrift: no sightseeing or shopping programmes, no jaunts around the countryside. The focus was to be strictly on the academics. And that is how TOXOCON-1 came to be called a no-frills conference, perhaps the first time ever when all scientific sessions were packed with participants!
Even with reference to funds, we decided not to approach commercial agencies with vested interests, who may insist on a quid pro quo arrangement, i.e., we give you funds, and you buy our products (regardless of quality). We would only approach legitimate funding agencies that provide financial help to organize academic programmes. When we mooted this idea to some of our colleagues, they declared that it would be impossible. You want a good conference, and you must have loads of money, they said, and funding agencies give you only peanuts. That may be true, but then we were not looking to embellish the conference with needless grandeur. We decided to give it a try. We approached only two agencies, and both immediately (and graciously) agreed to help. The amount admittedly was not much, but that was enough for us. The deficiency could be made up from registrations, and from the conference fund of the Society.
Thus was born TOXOCON-1: in poverty, but what riches it produced by way of academics! You only have to turn the pages of this issue to get an idea about the richness of the scientific deliberations. Though we had intended to restrict the participants to a hundred, eventually nearly twice that number turned up. We had delegates coming from virtually every part of the country, and even from abroad. It was a tightly packed programme with lectures, papers, and posters taking up every minute of that day from 8 AM to 7 PM, when we finally broke for a brief cultural programme (put on by the students of AIMS) and a well deserved dinner. The details are there for you to savour in the following pages. And if you missed out on all the excitement, make sure you will not make that mistake again. Our next conference will be even better! This issue contains a formal announcement; when you receive the brochure by post, register immediately. This time we are constrained to strictly restrict the number of participants to 50. But we have great things in store, so be there!