FROM THE CHAIRMAN'S DESK

The Western India chapter of Indian Society for Surface Science and Technology, ISSST.WIC was formed in July, 1990 by an enthusiastic group of scientist and engineers ably led by Prof. S.L.N. Murthy of IIT Bombay and Dr.K.S. Narayan, then with Hindustan Lever. Prior to this, in December 1989, the fourth National Conference on Surfactants, Emulsions and Biocolloids was held at IIT Bombay with large participation from relevant industry. The success of the conference generated strong interest among the industry persons and academics to interact fruitfully. Hence the need was felt to form a chapter.

The objectives of the chapter as laid down are:

• To bring together scientists and engineers in western India to promote interdisciplinary work in the fundamental and applied aspects of surfactants, emulsions, colloids, biopolymers and interfacial phenomena.
• To encourage research in the above fields
• To cooperate with similar groups from India and from abroad
• To organize lectures, conferences, symposia, seminars and workshops for dissemination of knowledge of surface science and Technology and related activities among the practitioners in this field.
• To publish useful and relevant proceedings, bulletins, books etc. as may be considered desirable.

Our chapter has been active towards these objectives. To date, the activities have encompassed organization of technical lectures, seminars, conferences and workshops. However, the society aims to become active in several other areas as well. Some endeavors that we have begun in the past, include:

• Establishment of research paper competition for Ph.D. students working in the area of Colloid and Interface science and engineering.
• Preparation of monographs useful to practitioners in the Industry.
• Offering of a course on the basic aspects as well as advanced knowledge of Colloid and Interface Science and Engineering for industry.
• Networking of the relevant experimental facilities available with various organizations located in this western region of our country.

Our endeavor will be to continue to achieve the objectives set out at the inception of this chapter. In addition we plan to utilize considerable potential offered by Internet by putting up some useful Website for dissemination of technical information. To do all these, we certainly need the support of Industry and we trust we shall get it. We appeal to all of you to participate in this venture and work towards its success.

Prof. KARTIC C. KHILAR Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T.Bombay, Powai, Mumbai -400076