THE INDIA STUDY CIRCLE FOR PHILATELY

Another in the series of ISC Zoom Display Meetings was held at 16.00 hours GMT on the 8th of February. Raj Rajan gave an excellent presentation on “Chettiars: The Tamil Merchant Diaspora in Southeast Asia” at which 41 members were in attendance. This was followed by a few items of ‘Show and Tell’.

The Display Meeting scheduled for the 8th of March was, unfortunately, cancelled, so the next Meeting will be held on Saturday, the 12th of April. In an experiment to see what effect it has on attendance, this Meeting will begin two hours earlier than previously. The program will be distributed by email a week or so beforehand.

AMSIPEX 2025, the 1st International Virtual Aero- & Astrophilatelic Exhibition was held in Bengaluru, India, from the 15th to the 23rd of February, the 18th being celebrated as World Air Mail Day. Twelve ISC members were awarded medals for their exhibits; full details of their awards and the titles of their exhibits are listed on the ISC Website at Gallery/ Members’ Awards.

URUGUAY 2025, the first FIP World Stamp Exhibition to be held in Uruguay, was held in Punta del Este from the 17th to the 22nd of February. Three ISC members were awarded medals, details of which are also listed on the ISC Website at Gallery/ Members’ Awards.

The BOXBORO 2025 Philatelic Show will be held in Boxborough, Massachusetts, USA, from the 18th to the 20th of April and the ISC is the only convening Society. The link to the show is: http://www.nefed.org/ps_index.php.

EUROPHILEX 2025 will take place from the 7th to the 11th of May at Hall 9 of the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, UK. The ISC will be holding a Meeting at 15.00 hours on the 7th May, at which the 75th Anniversary of the ISC will be celebrated by the launch of the ISC Diamond Jubilee Book. See below for information on the ISC 75th Anniversary celebrations.

The ISC will be holding a meeting at MIDPEX 2025 on Saturday the 5th July at the Warwickshire Event Centre, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK, between 2 and 4 pm. Members are invited to attend, with their guests, and to bring along some material from their collections to display and discuss.

The International Stamp Fair at Messe Ulm, Germany, will take place from the 23rd to the 25th of October and will include the ‘Live Postal History’ competition. More details will be available later.

BOSTON 2026 World Expo will be a major International Stamp Show, to be held from the 23rd to the 30th of May 2026 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Our Program Secretary, Sandeep Jaiswal, is organizing the ISC input; look out for further details.

Members should by now have received their copy of India Post issue No. 234, the cover of which recalls the style of the early editions of the journal, albeit with a strong emphasis on the ISC Diamond Jubilee. Our Editor, Deepak Jaiswal, is now in the process of producing issue No. 235, which is due to be uploaded to the Website on April 1st. All issues of India Post are downloadable from the ISC Website at Library/ India Post/ Browse India Post, by ISC members only.

You will be aware by now that 2025 is the 75th Anniversary of the India Study Circle. This will be celebrated at BOXBORO 2025 in April but the main celebrations will be at EuroPhilEx 2025 in May, as noted above. The ISC meeting will be held at 15.00 hours on Wednesday the 7th of May, at which the commemorative Diamond Jubilee Book will be launched, followed by a drinks reception with food, all sponsored by David Feldman International Auctioneers. Due to this generous sponsorship, every ISC member will receive a copy of this high-quality, hard-backed book.

Since the announcement at the last A.G.M. of the ISC Expertization Service for members, there has been some minor revision of the details. These may be found on the submission form, a copy of which will be inserted in India Post no. 235 and which can be printed off from the Website by clicking the button in the paragraph at the top of the ISC Members page. Members are eligible for one expert opinion per year free of charge.

The Committee is still trying to find a new Treasurer to replace our previous (and now ‘Acting’) Treasurer, Terry Hare Walker. Members resident in England or Wales who would consider taking on the role have been asked to contact the Secretary at [email protected]. Terry has done an enormous amount of work in the past few years to get the society’s finances in order, so that it will be a more routine, albeit important, job in the future.

The ISC Auction in the USA has been closed. The Committee has thanked Srinivas Prava and Deepak Jaiswal for having taken on the responsibility of running the Auction and having made a good effort at keeping it going despite various problems that arose, including assertions that there were un-recognised IRS implications and the fact that it had been difficult to source material, especially from British India.

Earlier this year, John Tinker, our erstwhile UK Packet Superintendent, reported that a parcel of material being returned to one of the contributors had gone missing in transit. Despite attempts to trace this package, it was not recovered. Consequently, our Treasurer, Terry Hare-Walker, claimed from our insurance company, who wanted proof of posting and, more onerously, evidence of what the package contained. As a result of John’s diligence and efficiency, both of these requirements were satisfied, as he had scanned the material in the package before dispatch! Terry received virtually the total amount of the claim.