IEA is a registered body of Indian Economics Professionals, established way back in 1917, with the objective of providing a forum for debate and discussion of theoretical and policy oriented issues of Economic Science. Thanks to the initiative taken by Charles Joseph Hamilton, then Minto Professor of Economics at Calcutta University, and a score of economists, mostly teachers, who met in Calcutta in December 1917 to deliberate on economics.  IEA is the oldest Association in Social Sciences and perhaps second oldest in the country in any discipline, after the Indian Science Congress Association (founded in 1914). IEA organizes annual conferences, seminars, and lectures by eminent persons of the profession. It stands for promoting the interest of the discipline in terms of extension, expansion and professional competence in teaching, training, research, and consultancy. It promotes the interests of its members, but more than that the interest of the public, which is served when members sincerely devote their time and energy to raise their competence and deploy that competence when the occasion arises. IEA has so far organized 101 annual conferences in different parts of the country.