Past Secretaries

Ms.Mimi Ghosh

I took charge of the IASOWA Exec. Committee as secretary , from the secretary,
Mrs. Ammu Paul, when the President was Mrs. Pratima Kumar.

The other members of the committee were the following:

1. Mrs. Vijaya Agnihotri (Andhra)

2. Mrs. Rachna Rakesh (Manipur-Tripura & Sikkim)

3. Mrs. Pramod Kapur (UT)

4. Mrs. Pammi Gauba (Jharkhand)

5. Mrs. Ammu Paul (Bihar)

6. Mrs. Indira Basu (West Bengal)

7. Mrs. Manju Kumar (Haryana & Punjab)

8. Mrs. Meenu Baijal (M.P.)

9. Mrs. Kalpana Rastogi (T. Nadu)

10. Mrs. Anita Dua (Maharashtra & Rajasthan)

11. Mrs. Bodi Bagga ( UP)

12. Mrs. Gita Chadha ( Nagaland)

13. Shailaja Brahmdutt (Karnataka)

14. Mrs. Surbhi Lal (J&K)

15. Mrs. Shakuntala Nath (Retired members)

16. Mrs. Mimi Ghosh (Gujarat)

I don’t recollect our Kerala or Orissa representative .

Some of our outstanding activities were :

Ours was the first committee to get our IAS Wives Association registered .
It was the first also to start the retired officers’ wives get-together.

When the Sanskriti School was under construction, our committee members started a crèche for the labourers’ children and we took turns preparing meals for them every day and teaching them. We got a few children enrolled in the municipal school nearby where they remained till their parents had to move away.

A large quantity of dry food , blankets and clothing was collected from members for the Orissa flood victims and sent to its destination by Mr. Prasanna Hota, (Resident Commissioner, Orissa)

Dr. Naresh Trehan & Ms. Ambika Pillai were two of the distinguished people who addressed our gatherings during the course of the year.

I wish the present committee my heartfelt good wishes and I’m sure they are doing a lot of good work for the Association . Mrs. Jaya Chandrashekhar and Mrs. Anju Chandra, with help from the enthusiastic committee members, are very ably conducting the activities of IASOWA , encouraging new talent as much as possible .May the future committees carry on this tradition to the best of their ability!

Mimi Ghosh.

Ms. Anju Chandra

Dearest Members,

It was a great pleasure for me and the new Committee members to be warmly welcomed and inducted into our onerous new roles in a very warm, nice and cute get-together by Mrs Jaya Chandresekhar our President in the sprawling lawns of her residence.

Till that day it had not dawned on me what a huge responsibility I was taking upon my shoulders. Of course, Jayaji is there all the time in the control room, as the captain of the ship, navigating the rudder, but we are confident that we will keep the going on even keel. Of course, Shubhi had warned me that now onwards the only ocean and sky one would see would have IASOWA written all over it!

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,
But,
"Anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

It is my earnest request to all Members to please participate actively in all activities of the association; the better the response the better will be the programs. And please do give us ideas and names of people who might want to contribute and associate in a helpful way.

I read some beautiful lines from Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji, which I excerpt below:

“You will feel guilty when your celebration is aimed at gratifying yourself. But if
the intention is to uplift everyone in your area, just do it.
Don’t delay it.
We will never feel guilty if our celebration takes people out of their gloomy moods. This celebration becomes service and there is no guilt. And when your service becomes celebration, there is no ego and pride in it. So celebrate every moment knowing that every moment is a gift to us.”

Anju Chandra