President Message

Dr. Raveendranath M

President

Dear Colleagues,

I am extremely happy to place on record my heartiest gratitude for allowing me as President of IDA, 2024, to serve the profession and association. With great respect, I remember the contributions of all past presidents, secretaries, and other leaders of the association.

Globally, Dentistry is growing at an alarming pace and now it is AI-driven. Research and innovations are numerous and frequent in dentistry and IDA becomes the sole voice of dentists and the sole platform for all stakeholders to discuss and take the findings of innovation and research to the government, public, and media effectively.

We are all aware of the social, professional and organisational challenges before us and we are either authority, medium or catalyst to find a solution for all the challenges.

We have achieved a lot during these years- we have an efficient and excellent office, high respect and recognition at the national and international levels, high level of acceptance by the Government, council, and stakeholders of the fraternity. The APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for education, training, research, and incubation is a very valuable asset for our association. IDA head office is now creating enumerable policies on oral health for the country. We have initiated a task force under the leadership of Dr. Deependu Majumdar for a better future of dentistry in India. Dr. Ashok Dhoble, our Hon. Secretary General, has done a commendable job of bringing IDA to this level.

But we must improve our membership strength, update, and upgrade the organisation, and bring about attractive welfare schemes for the members. We must strengthen our wings- CDH, CDE and publications.We have to introspect our conferences for better participation and evaluation.

The local branch is the delivery point for everything, and we need empowered local branches throughout the country. We should ensure that local branches abide by the constitution and statutory requirements and maintain proper records.

The role of Central Council members is crucial and critical in all the activities. They are the liaison officers between head office, the state and local branches. They should be able to relay the decisions and policies of the head office to local and state branches and vice versa. The head office has already initiated moves internally on administrative reforms, constitutional amendments, and possibilities of an attractive welfare scheme. We need a thorough discussion on these aspects for a foolproof mechanism to implement these activities at the grassroots level.

I am convinced that the office bearers and central council members should be made more responsible and accountable in the future to take our association to greater heights and establish an “IDA feel and zeal” among members.