After completing a little over 13 years our founding Director Dr. N Devadasan has moved on from IPH. The conversation of transition had begun at IPH much in advance of this event as Deva also had a strong resolve that he did not want IPH to be known only by him and hence systematically groomed the next line of leadership over the past few years. The journey of Deva and Roopa is a fascinating one and a blog does capture some of the initial years of his contribution to public health. Their story from CMC Vellore to Gudalur to Delhi and then to Bangalore to create IPH is one of great resolve and extremely inspiring to say the least. IPH since its inception has served as a platform for young enthusiastic public health professionals to contribute to strengthening Indian health systems and striving to make an equitable change in the society by empowering the people through high quality research, skill-based education and policy engagement.
Over the past few years IPH experimented a shared and distributive form of leadership which has took form of a management committee. The shared leadership has successfully worked in building individual and institutional capacities. This platform and legacy are all set to continue and grow under the able leadership of Dr. Upendra Bhojani who has been appointed by the governing board of IPH as the new Director from July 1st, 2019. Upendra is a public health researcher with vast experience in public health research especially in the domain of chronic conditions and public policies and also in management and leadership. In a small event at the institute the staff and associates of IPH thanked and acknowledged the immense contribution of Deva and Roopa to IPH and the field of public health and for making it what it is today and welcomed Upendra to his new role as the Director of IPH. As Deva and the board members echoed they are extremely happy to hand over IPH to very safe hands and look forward to Upendra and the committed team to take IPH to greater heights.
