At the recently held 19th National Conference in Ahmedabad, the Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction (ISAR) has appointed India’s renowned IVF Physician, Dr Hrishikesh Pai as its President for 2014.

The appointment was announced in the presence of chief guest Dr Amrita Patel, chairman, National Diary Development Board.

Dr Pai was felicitated with a gold medal. In 1991, Dr Pai was India’s eighth to start an IVF centre and now India has over 800+ centres. Diana Hayden, Former Miss World was the Guest of Honor.

India’s well-known infertility doctors - Dr Nandita Palshetkar was appointed as the Secretary General, ISAR and Dr Rishma Pai as the Vice President, ISAR.

In his first ISAR presidential speech Dr Hrishikesh Pai expressed his gratitude saying, “India is fast emerging as a global hub for IVF sector and we are fortunate to have a talent pool of world’s most talented doctors and a young population. Our target for 2014 is to complete the formation of the remaining eight chapters, increase ISAR membership, initiate multi-centric trials on various subjects of academic interests, and launch ISAR’s CSR activity by conducting free infertility clinics, public fora and offering fertility treatments at subsidised cost.”

He further added that the first nationwide fertility survey will also be launched to analyse fertility trends in our country. “We will also work towards liaisoning with the state governments and the central government to go to the masses.”

Dr Nandita Palshetkar, secretary general, ISAR said, “With 10-15 per cent of incidents of infertility and with around 30-40 million couples suffering from infertility problems, India’s is seeing an increasing rate of infertility over the last decade. The need of the hour is to make couples suffering from infertility aware of the possible solutions and treatments.”

Dr Rishma Pai, vice president, ISAR said, “We are grateful with the response received in 2013. We are also grateful to have prominent celebrity figures supporting us. I congratulated the doctors and the organising team of ISAR for their result oriented efforts across all Chapters of ISAR Nationwide.”

ISAR EXPRESS (on Ahmedabad Chapter) and the launch of a book NAARI was also conducted successfully.

ISAR regularly sponsors annual national congress on Assisted Reproduction and Advances in Management of Infertility along with relevant workshops. It been 23 years since the association was formed with 19 National congresses being organised on Assisted Reproductive Technology and Infertility management. The congress currently has 250 national faculty, over 20 international faculty and 2300 delegates.