Pediatrics Journals

Description of the country: India, officially the Republic of India (IAST: Bh?rat Ga?ar?jya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people), and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Geography of the country: The original Indian plate survives as peninsular India, the oldest and geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the Satpura and Vindhya ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand in the east. To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau, is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and Eastern Ghats; the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over one billion years old. Constituted in such fashion, India lies to the north of the equator between 6° 44' and 35° 30' north latitude[e] and 68° 7' and 97° 25' east longitude.

Status of economy, research and development: According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Indian economy in 2015 was nominally worth US$2.183 trillion; it is the 7th-largest economy by market exchange rates, and is, at US$8.027 trillion, the third-largest by purchasing power parity, or PPP. With its average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past two decades, and reaching 6.1% during 2011–12, India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies. However, the country ranks 140th in the world in nominal GDP per capita and 129th in GDP per capita at PPP. Until 1991, all Indian governments followed protectionist policies that were influenced by socialist economics. Widespread state intervention and regulation largely walled the economy off from the outside world. An acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the nation to liberalise its economy; since then it has slowly moved towards a free-market system by emphasising both foreign trade and direct investment inflows. India's recent economic model is largely capitalist. India has been a member of WTO since 1 January 1995.

Pediatrics:  The Indian Academy of Pediatrics was established in 1962, in Patna, Bihar, with less than 100 pediatricians as its members. As of 2007 there are over 16,500 members across the country. It has State, District, and City level branches. The Academy has promoted different specialties in the field of pediatrics through it various Chapters. The IAP is the unique association of pediatricians in India; other organizations of medical specialties are often more segmented. The association has been able to maintain unity among its members. One of the major activities undertaken by the IAP since its inception has been to organize Continuing Medical Education (CME) programs by holding conferences, symposia, lectures and other meets all over the country. IAP head office is in Mumbai while Delhi is the seat of its official publication - Indian Pediatrics, an indexed journal. A more recent journal - Practical Pediatrics - - is published from Chennai and is fast becoming a popular source of scientific information.