This is our opportunity to thank the membership for allowing us a chance to serve the ACIPA membership. First, please bookmark our website (http://theacipa.org). We have made a few minor changes to the operating structure of ACIPA. The present executive council comprises of me and a team of four executive officers, Professor Savitri Iyer from SUNY at Geneseo, Dr Suvendra Nath Dutta from Harvard University, Professor Jainendra K Jain from The Pennsylvania State University and our youngest member who is right out of grad school, Dr Srinivas Raghu from Princeton University. Savitri served as a Treasurer under the past Presidency of Professor Jogesh Pati and is continuing in this role. Suvendra and Srinivas are newcomers to the ACIPA. They bring a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to the body. Jainendra as many of you know has been a member from his student days at SUNY Stony Brook, and is someone who needs no introduction. Jainendra has offered to help ACIPA strengthen its ties with the significant Indian student body in the US. Our roles don't have sharp demarcations. We are hoping that by working collectively and sharing in each others responsibilities we can continue to serve the ACIPA. Professor Pati continues as a part of the team as the Past President.

For many reasons, ACIPA has not been very active for a couple of years. We are hoping to restart our activities. We plan to publish three newsletters/year, in December/January, April/May and in August/September.

A two hour evening session in the APS March Meeting in Baltimore in 2006 is headed your way. We will meet between 7:30pm and 9:30pm on Tuesday, March 14 at Grand Salon IV, Baltimore Convention Center. Please stay tuned for email updates on this upcoming important event in which your involvement is very much sought.

An ad hoc panel will soon be appointed to recommend candidates for the ACIPA Distinguished Scholar Award for 2006.

We warmly invite graduate and undergraduate students, especially those with origins in the Indian subcontinent, to become ACIPA members. We will not require any membership fees until Fall 2006. However, membership contributions are welcome. Please contact me (sen@nsm.buffalo.edu) or Professor Jainendra Jain (jain@phys.psu.edu) if you have any questions regarding the ACIPA or if you would like us to explore any of your ideas.

The student membership fee will be $ 10/year. Regular membership fees with be $ 20/year. Life memberships remain at $ 150 one time. We encourage Life Memberships because the contributions are added to our prinicipal. Please send your checks payable to American Chapter of the Indian Physics Association to Prof. Savitri Iyer, Department of Physics, SUNY at Geneseo, Geneseo, NY 14454.

The funds are used to organize the satellite sessions, for maintaining the web pages, for journal donation activities and for other expenditures associated with the functioning of the ACIPA.

ACIPA plans to focus on issues of strong interest to the community of physicists of Indian origin in North America as well as to the physics community in India.

• A key agenda item is to continue to develop our ties with the APS Forum on International Physics. APS-FIP Chair Elect, Dr Irving Lerch, is hoping to join us at the ACIPA Baltimore get-together.
• ACIPA will do everything possible to help the student body connect with the professionals. To enable communication, please email your thoughts, questions, request for advice, etc to sen@nsm.buffalo.edu. Your message will be posted in an ACIPA Q/A Bulletin Board.
• We invite your ideas and suggestions regarding the Newsletter. Please send them to me (sen@nsm.buffalo.edu) with a copy to Suvendra (sdutta@cfa.harvard.edu).

Surajit Sen, President

Jogesh Pati, Past President

Suvendra M. Dutta, Executive Officer

Savitri Iyer, Executive Officer

Jainendra Jain, Executive Officer

Srinivas Raghu, Executive Officer