Background
The Indian Meteorological Society (IMS) is a non-profit scientific society with the primary objective to advance meteorological and allied sciences in all their aspects. To actively pursue this objective, the IMS strives to encourage and expand meteorological research and promote cooperation in scientific work, including through publication of scientific books and journals. The IMS has been regularly bringing out the Vayumandal as a semi-annual Bulletin of the IMS, which is its flagship scientific journal. To support its regular publications as well improve its quality and sustainability, the IMS National Council (NC) has constituted a three-member Standing Committee (SC) on Vayumandal.
Tenure and Composition
The IMS SC on Vayumandal will have tenure of four years. The committee will have three members consisting of Chief Editor (Chairman of the SC), Managing Editor and Executive Editor. The current Secretary of IMS NC will serve as an Ex-officio member of the SC and as the Managing Editor. The tenure of the Chief Editor and Executive Editor will serve the committee for two consecutive biennial terms of the NC, to ensure continuity. The tenure of the Ex-officio member will however be concurrent to the period of the NC.
Terms of Reference
- To ensure regular and timely publication of Vayumandal, currently twice in a year, to be issued in January and July every year;
- To improve the scientific quality of Vayumandal and make proposals to enhance its frequency to become a quarterly journal;
- To submit/apply proposal for the Indexing- Scopus, Web of Science etc;
- To make concerted efforts to attract high-quality contributions and enhance the impact factor of Vayumandal;
- To establish good practices for high-quality peer-review process and make it efficient and timely through online procedures;
- To work towards making Vayumandal an on-line open-access journal;
- To make efforts to bring all the old issues of Vayumandal online with open access;
- To promote wider circulation of Vayumandal;
- To make proposals for the membership of the Editorial Board, to support the Chief Editor in the ongoing peer review process, consisting of not more than 14 members for consideration and endorsement by the NC, consisting of eminent experts from India and abroad, with a good balance of expertise, region, gender and youth;
- To submit annual reports to the NC on the status and recommendations for consideration by the NC and IMS members.
Membership
The composition of the SC on Vayumandal for the period 2024-2026 is as follows:
- Prof. Bhaskar Rao – Chairman & Chief Editor;
- Dr. Raghavendra Ashrit – Member & Executive Editor;
- Dr. S. I. Laskar – Member & Managing Editor (Secretary, IMS NC, Ex-offcio, 2024-26).