McGill University Board of Governors has reappointed President Chandra Madramootoo as Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences for a further five-year term. He was congratulated by the Board of Governors for the leadership that he has shown regarding finding solutions to global food security.

ICID fraternity heartily congratulates Prof. Madramootoo on this occasion and hopes to derive more from his leadership.

In the Diamond Jubilee Year of ICID, the 60th International Executive Council (IEC) meeting and 5th Asian Regional Conference (ARC) of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) were held during 6-11 December 2009 at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, India. The theme of the 5th Asian Regional Conference was "Improvement in Efficiency of Irrigation Projects through Technology Up-gradation and Better Operation & Maintenance".

During above events, over 32 ICID Workbody meetings and 6 Special Sessions were held. The papers received for 5th Asian Regional Conference were presented in 20 Technical Sessions. The events were organized by the Indian National Committee of ICID (INCID) under the dynamic leadership of Mr. A.K. Bajaj, Chairman of CWC / INCID and the support from Central Board of Irrigation & Power (CBIP).

More than 740 delegates from more than 47 countries of which about 440 were local delegates, representatives from International Organizations participated in various events to make it very successful. The highlights of the above meetings were:

• The 5th Asian Regional Conference was inaugurated by Hon'ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal, Hon'ble Union Minister of Water Resources, Mr. Vincent H. Pala, Hon'ble Minister of State for Water Resources, Mr. U.N. Panjiar, Secretary of Ministry of Water Resources, Mr. A.K. Bajaj, Chairman, Central Water Commission / Indian National Committee of ICID, Prof. Dr. Chandra A. Madramootoo, President of ICID and Er. M. Gopalakrishnan, Secretary General, ICID graced the occasion.

New Vice Presidents are :

• Dr. Willem F. Vlotman (Australia)
• Dr. Laszlo G. Hayde (Hungary)
• Mr. A.K. Bajaj (India)

Secretary General :

Secretary General Gopalakrishnan's present term was extended till December 2010.

The ICID WatSave Award Winners are:

• Technology Award - Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad (Pakistan)
• Innovative Water Management Award - Mr. S.M. Somawanshi, Mr. Bharat Kawale and Dr. Sanjay M. Belsare (India)
• Young Professionals Award - Dr. Malcolm Gillies (Australia)
• Special Recognition - Mr. Arvind Narayanrao Nalkande, a farmer from India.

Best Paper Award 2009 was presented to Ms. Jianxin Mu (China), Dr. Shahbaz Khan (Australia); and Dr. Gao Zhanyi (China) in recognition of their paper in Irrigation and Drainage (Issue 57.4).

MoU - Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed for Bilateral Collaboration between International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) and Ministry of Energy, Islamic Republic of Iran through Iranian National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (IRNCID).

New Chairs, Vice Chairs and Secretaries of ICID Workboides :

• Vice Presidents Dr. A. Hafied A. Gany (Indonesia) and Mr. Shinsuke Ota (Japan) will serve as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of PCSPOA.
• Dr. Kamran Emami (Iran) will serve as new Chairman of WG-HIST.
• Dr. Gerhard Backeberg (South Africa) will serve as New Chairman of TF-FIN.
• Ir. Henk P. Ritzema (The Netherlands) and Dr. Ruey-Chy Kao (Chinese Taipei) will serve as new Vice-Chairman and Secretary of the WG-SDTA, respectively.
• Dr. Laszlo G. Hayde (Hungary) will serve as new Vice-Chairman of PFC.
• Mr. R.C. Jha (India) will serve as new Vice-Chairman of TF-POVERTY.
• Dr. Kamran Emami (Iran) and Dr. Takao Masumoto (Japan) will serve as new Vice-Chairman and Secretary of the WG-CAFM.
• Dr. Marcel Kuper (France) and Dr. Bruce Lankford (UK) will serve as new Associate Editors of the EB-JOUR.
• Mr. L.C. Tollefson (Canada) will serve as new Vice-Chairman of the WG-CROP.
• Dr. Ray Shyan Wu (Chinese Taipei) will serve as new Secretary of WG-CLIMATE.
• Dr. Adama Sangare (Mali) and Mr. Andrew Sanewe (South Africa) will serve as new Chairman and Vice Chairman of AFRWG.

New Task Force

• Task Force on 'Water for Bio-Energy and Food'

Re-named ICID Workbody/ Newsletter

• ST-ARAL renamed as Working Group on Irrigation and Drainage in States with Transition Economy"
• ICID quarterly newsletter renamed ICID News

ICID publications released

• Publication released during the Opening Ceremony was "Water Resources Development in India".
• ICID Multilingual Technical Dictionary on Irrigation and Drainage (2010)
• ICID @ 60 (CD-ROM)

New Member Countries of ICID

• Applications from Cameroon and Fiji have been accepted

Congresses / Conferences / Workshops

• WG-CROP proposes to organize a workshop on "Water Saving and Conservation" in October 2010 at Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
• 24th ICID European Regional Conference will be held in December 2010 at Orleans, France.
• WG-PQW proposes to organize a workshop on "Water Quality and Irrigation" in October 2011 at Tehran, Iran.
• 25th ICID European Regional Conference will be held during 16-20 May 2011 at Groningen, The Netherlands.
• 63rd IEC and 7th Asian Regional Conference will be held in 2012 at Adelaide, Australia.
• 65th IEC and 22nd ICID Congress will be held in 2014 at South Korea

Closing Ceremony

Special Postal cover marking the 'Diamond Jubilee Year' (1950-2009) of ICID was released during the Closing Ceremony.

Hon'ble Union Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee was the Chief Guest for the Closing Ceremony. Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal, Hon'ble Union Minister of Water Resources, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr. Vincent H. Pala, Hon'ble Minister of State for Water Resources, Mr. Sachin Pilot, Hon'ble Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Mr. U.N. Panjiar, Secretary of Ministry of Water Resources, Mr. S. Manoharan, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, Mr. A.K. Bajaj, Chairman, Central Water Commission / Indian National Committee of ICID, Prof. Dr. Chandra A. Madramootoo, President of ICID and Er. M. Gopalakrishnan, Secretary General, ICID graced the occasion.