Dear Members,

Even as I wish all of you a very healthy and prosperous new year, I will be failing in my duty if I do not thank each and every one of you for having considered me fit to occupy this desk. I pray that I will achieve a miniscule degree of success that my very distinguished predecessor has set for us to follow. Change is considered to be the only permanent thing in the world. As agents of change a new team has been swept into place and it now devolves on all of us to make the changes in the external environment work to our advantage.

Carrying forward the initiative to broad base the membership of our body, we have increased the tempo of enrolment and would like to suggest that “each one bring one” for the next six months. The old adage “united we stand” is truer when we have the full compliment of members who are eligible to become members of this august body.

The tradition of committee meeting 2nd Friday of the month continues and we are now making efforts to create the sub-committee’s to grapple with the matters assigned to them. We look forward to members suggestions for improvements and volunteering members could be co-opted on to the committees and whose knowledge can be leveraged to serve the interests of the members. The newsletter continues to enjoy wider attention from readers and advertisers, and all members are requested to come forward with suggestions to make it more attractive and informative.

After the IT boom that we saw in the last decade and the biotech boom that we are now experiencing, it is my considered view that the next boom will be in the Hardware and tourism sectors. Members would do well to position themselves to exploit emerging opportunities in these vital sectors.

The new committee members had a brief interaction with Principal Secretary IT&C, VC & MD – APIIC, CEO- APINVEST, & Principal Secretary Industries Department, who promised to look into our old proposal to allot lands in the Hardware SEZ’s and Hardware Park-II. We shall keep you posted on this development in the coming months. We welcome members to write in to us with regard to any matter that suggests itself to be affecting all of us presently or likely to affect us in the future. A dynamic and pro-active association is what we have to build up and this can be done if all of us work in the spirit of camaraderie.

With Best Regards
N. Siva Prasad
President