Message from the President
At the beginning of June, the Commission held the 23rd Session in Pune (India). It was an unusual meeting because some National Committees (Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, France) did not participate fully in the Session. The political situation between India and Pakistan prevented their participation. Only 21 delegates from 11 different Countries were present and therefore we decided as follows:
- to go ahead with the meeting. Our Indian hosts had made elaborate arrangements for the week including the presence of two Ministers at the opening session, exhibition etc.
- to shorten the meeting because only one GS Referee out of 9 and 7 S Referees out of 14 were present
- to reduce the number of the Executive Committee meetings from three to two as the Treasurer, all the members of the Publication Committee, the Credentials Committee and the distributor of our publications (Bartens) were not present.
- to discuss various items on the agenda of the Executive Committee, making proposals to be ratified by the National Committees by e-mail vote
- to discuss the Recommendations of the various Subjects without any official acceptance
- to collect by e-mail contributions of the participants (deadline 15th of July);
- to put these contributions on the ICUMSA website (www.unife.it/icumsa) so that they can be discussed by all National Committees
- to ask the National Committees (mainly those not officially present in Pune) and other persons unable to participate at the meeting, to send me by e-mail their contributions to the discussion of the various Subjects (deadline September 15); these contributions will also be included in the webpage
- to ask Referees to take into account all of the contributions and send their replies and final Recommendations by e-mail to be included in the webpage (deadline October 31)
- the final Recommendations, together with the proposals suggested during the Executive Committee in Pune, will be ratified by the National Committees (deadline December 31)
- at the beginning of next year to prepare the Proceedings of the 23rd Session.
The discussion held in Pune for the various Subjects is now available on our Website. For each Subject you can find the text of the Report presented in Pune and the details of the discussion.
During the Executive Committee meetings in Pune, a number of proposals were made. These will be submitted for ratification by the National Committees and published in the next ICUMSA News.
In spite of the difficulties for this meeting, our work was carried out in a friendly and cooperative atmosphere of with our Indian friends. The organization of the session was excellent and included the participation of two Government Ministers who officially opened the Congress. The exhibition was particularly successful. Many stands had been set up by a number of companies and institutions working within the area of the production and analytical control of sugar and its by-products.
Although the number of foreign delegates was limited, the venue never appeared empty thanks to the presence of about 120 Indian delegates.
The subject Referees present gave their reports which were discussed by other delegates.
For Subjects without a speaker or Referee, the relevant Recommendations were announced and discussed by those present. This discussion was made easier by publication before the Session of the reports on our web site and the publication of a useful book provided to all delegates before the Session.
The gala dinner, which we held on the Tuesday evening rather than the Thursday as planned, took place in a traditional Pune restaurant.
On the Wednesday morning, after the second meeting of the Executive Committee and before the early closing of the Session, the participants visited the Vasantada Sugar Institute. This had been planned in the original programme.
I would like to express my warm thanks to our Indian friends and in particular The Sugar Technologists’ Association of India for the splendid work they carried out to ensure a successful Session bearing in mind the circumstances. A special thank goes to Mr. Shivajirao G. Patil and Mr. Vinay Kumar for their constant attention to the needs of the delegates and to all the others involved in the management of the meeting.