New IRMA General Committee
The new General Committee of IRMA has been constituted for the year 2006-08. The following are the members of the General Committee:

Dr. A.K. Chattopadhyay (Chairman) (Tata Refractories Ltd.)

Ms. Anisha Mittal (Deputy Chairperson) (Orient Abrasives Ltd.)

Mr. U.C. Deveshwar (ACE Refractories Ltd.)

Mr. Arun Agarwal (Associated Ceramics Ltd.)

Mr. K. Sarda (IFGL Refractories Ltd.)

Mr. Binod Kr. Agarwalla (Maithan Ceramics Ltd.)

Mr. S.K. Chaudhuri (OCL India Ltd.)

Mr. P.R. Agarwalla (National Refractories)

Mr. R.C. Biswas (Sarvesh Refractory Pvt. Ltd.)

Mr. C. Nagaratnam (Shri Nataraj Ceramic & Chemical Industries Ltd.)

Mr. B. Gupta (Vesuvius India Ltd.)

Dr. N.R. Bhattacharjee (Vishwakarma Refractories (P) Ltd.)

Mr. H.P. Biyani (Raj Ceramics)

Mr. G.K. Mattoo (Pyroceramics)

Constitution of IRMA Technical Sub-Committee and Small Scale Industries Sub-Committee
A Technical Sub-Committee has been formed to deal with various technical issues facing the industry and to advice and assist members and Government in this connection. A Small Scale Industries Sub-Committee has also been formed to deal with the issues and problems specific to the industry and which demand attention.
The Technical Sub-Committee has been formed under the Chairmanship of Mr. B.N. Ghosh, Adviser (Technical) IRMA while the Small Industries Sub- Committee has been formed under the Chairmanship of Mr. G.K. Mattoo.

IREFCON 2008
The 7th India International Refractories Congress was held from 7th February - 9th February 2008 in Kolkata. The venue was the Hotel Taj Bengal. Dr. Michel Rigaud, life member of UNITECR and Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique at Montreal (Canada) delivered the Keynote Address. Senior and well known technologists had been invited to deliver Theme Lectures on specific topics such as Refractories for Iron making, Steel making, Developments in Monolithics and so on.

Membership
The new members who have been admitted to the IRMA in last six months are (a) Andhra Refractories & Monolithics, (b) Jamuna Refractories Pvt. Ltd., (c) Mahakoshal Refractories, (d) Shree Mahabir Refractories Works.

Directory of Members 2007
The Directory of members covering company data for 50 member companies and 13 Associate members has been published. The publication is priced at Rs.250 for member companies, at Rs.350 for non-member companies in India and US$15 for overseas companies.

UNITECR 2009
Information has been received that the 11th Unified Technical Conference on Refractories, UNITECR 2009, would be held from 13th to 16th October 2009 in Salvador, Brazil. In the first call for papers, the Abstracts in English are to be submitted by 31st December 2008 and the final manuscript of the paper accepted for oral presentation is to be submitted by 30th April 2009. For further information please contact by email at info@unitecr2009.org or visit the website at www.unitecr2009.org.