A Curtain Raiser was held on February 27 – the eve of inauguration of the exhibition – at Sahara Star. Sanhua was the event partner.

V. Krishnan (Chair – ACREX 2019) welcomed the delegates and described the challenges before the building industry, which are being met by harnessing and adopting new
technologies. ISHRAE President C. Subramaniam gave an overview of ISHRAE to the audience.

Alex Wang, Global Sales Director – Sanhua, articulated his vision of letting everyone in India afford an air conditioner. Saurabh Bhanot, Country Head – Sanhua, spoke about the company, its product range, quality and market leadership. Vishal Kapur, Chair – National Steering Committee, ACREX 2019, conducted a discussion on what brings companies to India. Frank Hovorka, President-Elect – REHVA, and Alex Wang participated in the discussion.

This was followed by conferring of awards for distinguished service rendered to ISHRAE. H. M. Jhangiani Journal Paper Awards were presented for two best articles published in the Journal and its Cold Chain supplement during 2017. These awards were bagged by Shankar Chatterjee for his article on ‘Executing a District Cooling Project’ in the December 2017 issue of the Journal, and V. B. Maniam for his article on ‘CO2 in Subcritical Refrigeration Applications’ in the September 2017 issue of Cold Chain.