History Does Not Belong to us, we Belong to it….. Hans Georg Gadamer

The journey so far…..

FOGSI was established 73 years ago on 6 January 1950 during the sixth All India Congress of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Madras. FOGSI serves to promote and distribute knowledge, education, and research in the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, as well as to pilot and evaluate new technologies, encourage the provision of preventative and therapeutic services connected to the profession of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, for the betterment of women's and children's health in particular, as well as to advocate for reproductive health and the general well-being of the community rights, and to promote and safeguard the interests of Obstetrics and Gynaecology practitioners in India. FOGSI, along with the government, is involved in significant decisions affecting women and children and has been also involved in a number of government programmes.

Journal is the Soul of FOGSI, Its Mirror……

The Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Societies of India (FOGSI) publishes the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of India (JOGI). This peer-reviewed publication publishes studies in the fields of obstetrics and gynaecology. Contributions from doctors working in patient care and research, as well as fundamental science researchers, are accepted for publication. It publishes clinical and basic research in all areas of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, including community obstetrics and family welfare, as well as subspecialty subjects such as gynaecological endoscopy, infertility, oncology, and ultrasonography, if it has scientific merit and represents an important advance in knowledge. While the Journal's primary focus is on contributions from India, the Journal welcomes and promotes relevant contributions from all around the world.

The Journal publishes original articles, invited reviews, invited articles, mini-review articles, instrumentation and techniques, invited instrument reviews, case studies, invited book reviews, short commentary, correspondence (letters to the editor), and photo essays.

The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology of India (JOGI) uses a double-blind peer review approach to ensure that each paper is of high quality before it is published. JOGI has approximately 500 peer reviewers who are leaders in their fields. Every year, the Journal awards "best paper" prizes to encourage contributors. With indexing from different reputable medical abstracting services, the Journal has regularly and gradually established itself in the international arena.

The inaugural issue of the Journal was released in September 1950, under the leadership of Dr. J. Jhirad. The workload of the Editors increased year after year. Regular additions to the Editorial Board were required. The position of Assistant Editor was established in 1964, Associate Editor in 1972, and Joint Associate Editor in 1987. On the administrative side, the positions of Jt. Assistant Secretary and Assistant Secretary were established in 1979 and 1981, respectively.

The list of Editors who have served JOGI at the helm is as follows:

Dr. J Jhirad 1950–1968.

Dr. K M Masani 1968-1986.

Dr. V N Purandare 1987–1996.

Dr. R D Pandit 1997–2003.

Dr. M N Parikh 2003–2007.

Dr. Adi E Dastur 2008–2010.

Dr. C N Purandare 2011–2013.

Dr. Gautam N Allahbadia 2014–2017.

Dr. C V Hegde 2017.

Dr. Suvarna Khadilkar 2018—2020.

Dr. Geetha Balsarkar 2021–2023.

It's Very Rare that Publications Double Their Frequency. “James Dally”

The Journal's inaugural edition was released in September 1950. The publication was quarterly and released four times a year. Therefore, one volume included parts from each of the two succeeding calendar years and included September, December, March, and June issues. This continued till 1960–1961 Volume No. 11. The four issues of a book were thought to be more acceptable to publish in a single calendar year. In order to do this, volume 12 was released six times a year over a period of 11/2 years, including the second part of 1961 and all of 1962. Volume 13's four quarterly issues were released in 1963, and the publication pattern continued in 1964.

Nonetheless as more quality articles were being submitted for publication, it became clear that the Journal needed to publish more frequently. Thus, the decision was made to start publishing JOGI bimonthly in 1965. Volume 15 of that year featured six bimonthly issues. This is still the current practice. A Silver Jubilee number was released in 1975. The need for a monthly publication due to the ever-growing volume of papers was discussed extensively in 1974, 1982, and a few other years ago. However, budgetary constraints precluded a monthly release, so the backlog of accumulated papers was periodically reduced by extending an issue's page count to allow for the printing of additional papers.

JOGI published three special issues at the cost of accepted papers in the latter half of the 1990s. These special issues were as follows:

(1) FOGSI Guidelines (December 1998), (2) Breast Feeding (August 1999), and (3) Adolescent.

Girl (October 1999). Since 2003, the number of pages in every issue of a volume of the Journal is predetermined and fixed, and the number of papers pending publication is kept under control.

The Publication aspects of the Journal:

JOGI's publication and printing formats have evolved with the times. While the first prints were on card stock, art paper was used for the cover beginning in 1988. The cover design has evolved gradually, and between 2014 and 2017, interesting images served as the cover page. In 2018, Dr. Suvarna Khadilkar, Editor-In-Chief, introduced a new cover for the Journal, which was implemented beginning with the March/April 2018 issue. Springer changed the layout of the article starting with the March/April 2019 issue. In the last 73 years, the cover design has changed dramatically.

figure a

Prizes in Journal

In order to recognize and reward authors for articles published in the Senior and Junior categories of JOGI, the Journal established prizes and certificates in 1998. Two awards of Rs. 7000/-each were established by the Journal in 1998 for the best papers published in the Journal during the year; one prize was given to authors over 40 and the other to those under 40. From Rs. 7000 to Rs. 10,000, the prize revenue was adjusted. Three prizes total for each category were later added to the original number of prizes. Together with two extra prizes for the papers, Springer has also instituted prizes for the year's best case report and peer reviewer since 2021.

The focus of the Journal is shifting from being author-centric to being reader-centric, with published case reports, original papers, and editorials that are commissioned all having the reader's interest at heart.

Academic Standard of JOGI

The Editors have worked tirelessly to raise JOGI's scholarly standing since the publication's founding. Papers that were initially read at the AICOG were released in the first few issues of each year. Publication was also being considered for a few excellent papers that were given at meetings of member societies. Researchers, professors, and specialists in India and overseas were asked to submit articles as well.

The academic calibre of the papers being published has always increased thanks to tighter editing of submitted articles and authors' insistence on making revisions as requested by the editors. As space in the Journal became more and more limited, abstracts of articles published in foreign journals were eventually stopped from being published in 1963. Since then, only a small number of carefully chosen papers from presentations at AICOG have been published. The fact that certain articles published in the Journal since the 1950s have earned a spot in the Year Book Published from the USA is indicative of the steadily rising academic calibre of the articles published in the Journal.

To discourage the practice of senior co-author’s insistence on having their name as the first author at the cost of deserving junior authors, JOGI discontinued the practice of printing the academic degrees and designations of authors since 1984. Since 2000 the editors started informing the authors the reasons for rejection of their articles to help them improve submission of papers in the future. In 2001, the process of Peer Reviewing of the articles submitted was started. Since 2003, the Editors are following the practice of blinding the papers before sending them for Peer Reviewing and for editing, and of asking for detailed reporting of objective evaluation instead of a mere subjective assessment. Currently, 55% of the papers submitted for publication are rejected. Since 2003, the Journal is becoming more & more reader centric rather than author centric, and commissioned editorials and review articles, and published case reports and original papers are focused primarily on reader’s interest.

Writing good English is a universal problem with authors whose mother tongue and language of education is not English. To deal with this aspect the Journal had appointed an expert Copy Editor since 2003. Besides, the Journal is also having services of an experienced Biostatistician since 2003.

Finale

The Journal has been very efficiently serving FOGSI as its mouthpiece and is its official publication. It has the highest circulation amongst all speciality medical Journals in India.

Besides providing an excellent platform for research workers and clinicians for publishing their scientific work it provides the readers updated information and developments in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and related superspecialities. It also provides readers necessary information about the various activities of FOGSI from time to time. Since 2003, the Journal is becoming more and more reader centric. Its academic content is constantly improving in quality and will continue to do so. The Journal is aspiring to achieve internationally acknowledged standards and will achieve its goal in near future. Lastly, the Journal owes a tremendous debt to its pioneers Dr.J. Jhirad, Dr. K. M. Masani and Dr. Gool Vazifdar for their dedicated services of 18, 36 and 40 long years, respectively.

In short, JOGI represents the spirit of FOGSI’s vision statement which includes advocacy and promotion of women’s health using best scientific evidence, ensuring highest ethical standards.

"Life is a Balance Between Holding on and Letting Go". Rumi

I joined the Journal in 2003 as the junior most secretary to Dr. M.N. Parikh little knowing that I would have a twenty year long and illustrious career in the Journal, the last three years as Editor in Chief. I took over from Dr. Suvarna Khadilkar who had changed the journal tremendously with hard work and I had big shoes to fill. COVID in 2020 changed lots of perspectives for the Journal. We had to stop printing our Journal for six long months due to press closure and non-availability of papers. Along with my team and our never say die attitude we introduced a flip book of the issues and uploaded them on the website.

We continue to send sms and email to all membership of FOGSI on release of a new issue which can be accessed online as well without any password for 15 days. The sms also contains the abstracts of the issue to enable readers to have a quick look at the articles.

The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of India is on the must read for most postgraduates in most states and DNB students. This has brought the Journal on every postgraduate bookshelf and given wide readership. Additionally, the requirement of most postgraduates to have one publication before they appear for exams has improved our articles and their quality as well.

The Journal Abstracted and Indexed in the Following

Baidu, CLOCKSS, CNKI, CNPIEC, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), Dimensions, EBSCO Discovery Service, EMBASE Emerging Sources Citation Index, Google Scholar, Japanese Science and Technology Agency (JST), Naver Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals and Series, OCLC WorldCat Discovery Service, Portico, ProQuest-ExLibris Primo, ProQuest-ExLibris Summon, PubMedCentral, Reaxys, SCImago, SCOPUS, Semantic Scholar, TD Net Discovery Service, UGC-CARE List (India) and Wanfan.

Training of the Editors was very important as training the authors to improve the Journal. With that in mind ‘The CASCADE’ programme was introduced. It enabled various Editors of the Journal to discuss various papers and sharpen their skills. They were also informed about recent developments in the Editorial process. In collaboration with British Medical Journal, we trained our reviewers and editors on the Editorial process which was widely popular.

JOGI is a Member of COPE which is an Organization

COPE is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting integrity in research and its publication. Crucially, it is a non-statutory body which provides practical publication ethics guidance for editors and publishers working in all research disciplines. COPE aims to move the culture of publishing towards one where ethical practices become a normal part of the culture itself. The COPE guidelines and Editing peer reviews are intended to advise editors, publishers, and researchers on expected practices and appropriate circumstances regarding the editing of peer reviews.

Two theme-based issues and two supplementary issues were introduced every year these three years taking the total number of articles published per year to more than 100.

"The world is a mountain, in which your words are echoed back to you". Rumi. It all starts with a dream and with hard work and great support of my Editorial team I sign off on a very positive note. I am happy to inform you all that I have been appointed as Emeritus Editor for the Journal.

Just as Rumi says “At times you are a drop in the ocean, at times you are the ocean in the drop” the work in the Journal goes on…

I hand over the bastion to Dr. Madhuri Patel who is very hardworking and futuristic thinking along with her team and wish her all the best. I can assure her my support in all forms. As we celebrate many new beginnings this season, let’s evolve into a very progressive journal.