Prof. Sanatan Rath, our past president and also the past president
of the Neurological Society of India has rightly observed that
this Association is a ‘brain child’ of Dr. K. K. Sinha. The
redoubtable organizational ability of this man of vision has not
only helped in the creation of brain child but has master minded
its growth pattern in such a way that we can see for ourselves how
well it has come up.
It all began in the days of infamous Emergency of 1975-77. Dr.
Sinha resigned from the Rajendra Medical college and plunged
himself into private practice. It soon dawned on him that there
was a deplorable lack of infrastructural facilities for
diagnostics and therapeutics in this part of the country when one
compared with the developed centers of the South, West, and north
India. There was a pressing need for creating awareness amongst
the medical community and the public in general about this and he
was looking for a forum to launch this awareness which would
stimulate many renowned stalwarts scattered in different parts of
this region to come together on one common platform. It was
thought that from this platform appeals could be made to different
governmental machineries and all other health care providers to
create more facilities in the field of neurosciences in different
medical institutions in eastern India. With this aim in mind Dr.
Sinha motivated Dr. U Prasad a senior Physician with special
interest in Neurology at Bokaro to organize the 1st East Zonal
Neuro conference in 1978. It was successfully organized at Bokaro
General Hospital. As ill luck would have it, Dr. Sinha fell
seriously ill around this time and there was a setback for a
couple of years. When he recouped he got busy with the publication
of ‘Physician India’ and organizing CME program of the NSI (from
1985 through 1990) and its publication “Progress in Clinical
Neurosciences “. This is when I joined and find myself in a
position to recount the process of the formation of the
Association and its activities.
In 1988 during the Chandigarh Conference of the NSI Prof. N. N.
Sarangi met Dr. Sinha and they decided to reactivate the East
Zonal Neuro Conference. In 1989 the 2nd conference was held at
Calcutta. Prof. S. Rath organized 3rd conference at Cuttack in
Jan. 1990 Dr. Zakir Husssain invited the 4th annual conference at
Guwahati in Oct. 1990. It proved a corner stone in the history of
our association. It was at Guwahati conference that an adhoc
executive was formed with Prof. R. N. Roy as its president and Dr.
K.K. Sinha as its Hony. Secretary. It was decided to form an East
Zonal Chapter of the Neurological Society of India and write to
the NSI for formal approval of the same. It was also decided at
Guwahati to have a working constitution of this chapter drafted
and a committee was nominated for this. The committee prepared a
draft constitution. Pending the approval by the NSI the 5th annual
conference of the East Zone Chapter of the NSI was held at Ranchi
in Oct. 1991.
It was at Ranchi conference that a final shape was given to this
draft constitution by this committee comprising Prof. Shyamal Sen,
Prof. H. P. Narayan and Col. Dr. P. Sanchetee (Who was then posted
at Command Hospital, Calcutta and its currently at AFMC, Pune). It
was pointed out by the NSI that there was no provision in its
constitution for formation of any zonal chapter, though it allowed
a city or a state chapter to function. Prof. Sen was incidentally
the President of the NSI in 1991 and a proposal was formally made
to amend the constitution of the NSI to allow for the formation of
Zonal Chapter at the Dec. 1991 conference of NSI at Manipal. This
proposal for amendment did not get through and there in Manipal
the members of the NSI belonging to the Eastern India met and
decided to have an independent society of their own. Thus the
society was born and named “Association of Neuroscientists of
Eastern India (ANEI)”. Prof. Sarangi invited the 6th annual
conference (the first conference after the formation of this
Association) at Calcutta in Oct. 1992. It was here that our
constitution was formally adopted under the new name and a
membership drive was launched. The adhoc executive was dissolved
and the 1st executive was elected in 1993. Prof. Shyamal Sen was
formally elected the first President and Dr. Sinha the Hony.
Secretary