ASI NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
22nd Meeting of the
Astronomical Society of India held in Thiruvanthapuram
Presentation of M.K. Vainu Bappu Gold Medal for Young
Astronomers for the Year 2002
Dr. G.C. Anupama is the
Editor and Dr. D.J. Saikia is the Associate Editor of the Bulletin
23rd Meeting of the Astronomical Society of India hosted
by ARIES, Nainital during February 21-24, 2005
ASI-SOC
constituted for the period 2004-06
24th General Body Meeting of
ASI held on February 10, 2006 at NSSS-2006, Andhra University, Waltair
Awards of the
Society
Membership
Matters
Option for receiving Paper
Copy of the Bulletin of the ASI
Prof. Arvind Bhatnagar - An
Obituary
Announcement of election
to ASI Nominating Committee for the Triennium (2007-2009)
Announcement of result of
election to ASI Executive Committee for the Triennium (2007-2009)
Presentation of M.K. Vainu
Bappu Gold Medal for Young Astronomers for the Year
2004
25th
Meeting of ASI held during February 7-9, 2007 at Osmania University,
Hyderabad
26th General
Body Meeting of ASI held on February 27, 2008 at NSSS08 at RAC, Ooty.
27th Meeting of
the Astronomical Society of India, February 18-20, 2009
22nd Meeting of the Astronomical Society of India held in Thiruvanthapuram
The ASI held
its 22nd Meeting in Thiruvanathapuram during
Presentation of M.K. Vainu Bappu Gold Medal for Young Astronomers for the Year 2002
- posted on January 27, 2004
Dr. G.C.
Anupama is the Editor and Dr. D.J. Saikia is the Associate Editor of the
Bulletin
The
Editorial Board of the Bull. Astron. Soc. India has been reconstituted by the
President of ASI, Prof. S.N. Tandon. Dr. G.C. Anupama of the Indian Institute of
Astrophysics, is the new Editor and Dr. D.J. Saikia of the National Centre of
Radio Astronophysics, Pune is the new Associate Editor of BASI. D. Bhattacharya
(RRI, Bangalore), R.D. Cannon (Anglo Australian Observatory, Australia), D. A.
Green (Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, England), T.P. Prabhu (IIA,
Bangalore), Ram Sagar (ARIES, NainiTal), K. Subramanian (IUCAA), V. Trimble
(University of Maryland) are members of the Editorial Board. The society
expresses thanks and appreciation to the outgoing Editor, Dr. Harish Bhatt, the
outgoing Associate Editor Dr. Biman Nath and the other members of the outgoing
Board for managing the bulletin so well.
- posted
on
23rd Meeting
of the Astronomical Society of India was hosted by ARIES, Nainital during
The 23rd
meeting of ASI was hosted by ARIES in Nainital on the invitation of Prof. Ram
Sagar. The meeting was well attended by over 200 participants. There were 36
invited talks, 2 evening lectures, 7 thesis presentations and 147 poster papers.
The inaugural session was held on
Best Poster Paper Awards:
Sun and Solar
System (S) - H3+ in Jovian
Aurorae, by Koshy George and
T. Chandrasekhar (PRL, Ahmedabad)
Stars and
Galaxies (G) - A Novel
Technique of Accurate Estimation of Pulsar DM, by Amrit Lal Ahuja (IUCAA, Pune), Yashwant
Gupta, Dipanjan Mitra (NCRA,
Pune), and Ajit K. Kembhavi
(IUCAA, Pune)
ExtraGalactic
Astronomy and Cosmology (E) - Evidence for Relativistic Ionized
Outflows in the Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxies by
Surajit Dasgupta and A.
Dewangan (TIFR, Mumbai)
Instrumentation
(I) - An Image
Stabilization System for Solar Observations by R. Sridharan, A. Raja Bayanna, Brajesh Kumar, P. Venkatakrishnan (USO-PRL), and C.U. Keller
(NSO, Tucson, USA)
Best Presentation of Thesis
Award
P. Manoj (IIA,
Young Astronomer Award for
2005
S.B.
Pandey, D.K. Sahu, L. Resmi, R. Sagar, G.C. Anupama, D.
Bhattacharya, V. Mohan, T.P. Prabhu, B.C. Bhatt, J.C. Pandey, Padmaker
Parihar and A.J. Castr-Tirado: Optical Observations of the Bright
Long Duration Peculiar GRB 021004 Afterglow, Bull. Astron. Soc. India,
Vol 31, 19-36
(2003)
This award is
shared by S.B. Pandey (ARIES, Nainital), L. Resmi (RRI,
-posted on March 3,
2005
ASI-SOC constituted for the period 2004-06
The scientific organizing
committee of the ASI was reconstituted, and is chaired by Dr. Kandaswamy Subramanian, IUCAA, Pune. The other members of the new
SOC are: Jasjeet Singh Bagla, HRI, Allahabad; Narayan Banerjee, Jadavpur University, Kolkata;
Dipankar Bhattacharya, RRI, Bangalore;
T. Chandrashekhar, PRL, Ahmedabad; Yashwant Gupta, NCRA-TIFR, Pune; S. N.
Hassan, Osmania University,
Hyderabad; D. K. Ojha, TIFR, Mumbai; A. K.
Pandey, ARIES, Nainital; M.
Parthasarathy, IIA, Bangalore; T. R.
Seshadri, Delhi University, Delhi; P.
Sreekumar, ISAC, Bangalore; and P.
Venkatakrishan, USO-PRL, Udaipur. We thank
the members of the outgoing SOC for their good work.
24th
General Body Meeting of ASI held on February 10, 2006 at NSSS-2004, Andhra
University, Waltair:
The issue
of holding the annual ASI-GBM was discussed at the GBM on 23rd February 2005
during the 23rd ASI meeting, Nainital. It was suggested that ASI-GBM could be
held during the National Space Science Symposium (NSSS) which are organised in
the alternate years when ASI meeting is not convened. The 24th ASI-GBM was held
on February 10, 2006 during the 14th NSSS (February 9-12, 2006) at Andhra
University, Visakhapatnam. A session in Astronomy was also arranged in this
symposium. The general body meeting held on February 10, 2006 was thinly
attended by 24 members. The president and vice-president could not attend the
GBM, and it was presided by the Secretary, Dr. Ashok Ambastha.
-posted on September 20, 2005
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Nominations are invited for the following awards of the Society. Further details are provided in the website of the ASI.
New Discovery Award: An award for the discoveries of comets, asteroids, novae, supernovae and any other astrophysical phenomena made by an Indian National in India. There is no age restriction for this award. Nominations are invited for the discovery made during the period 2005-2006.
Justice V.G. Oak Award 2007 for Outstanding Thesis in Astronomy: An award for outstanding Ph.D. thesis in Astronomy by an Indian student engaged in research in astronomy, astrophysics, planetary sciences and allied fields. The thesis should have been formally submitted in the year 2006.
Email:asi@iucaa.ernet.in
-- posted on
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Membership matters:
The membership list of the Astronomical Society of India has crossed the 1000 mark. However, it has been observed that a large number of persons are not regularly paying annual membership subscriptions. Please note that the annual subscription of the Regular, Associate and Student categories of membership becomes due on the 1st day of each calendar year. Persons who have not paid their annual subscriptions are requested to contact the treasurer, Prof. R.C. Kapoor, to ascertain the outstanding dues to be paid for continuation of their membership. The existing Regular Members may give their option to become LIFE member to the treasurer, for which the prescribed subscription would be payable. As resolved by the 23rd GBM in Nainital, those who failed to pay the arrears by the end of the year 2005 are considered to have lost their membership, and are required to submit fresh application form.
Directory of ASI Members: It is being planned to bring out a directory of the ASI members. The members can check their current details in the ASI web-page available at the URL: http://www.iucaa.ernet.in/~asi/membership.html. Those of you who have already responded to our previous request, made in the March 2004 issue of the Bull. A.S.I., need not send these details again, unless there is a need for update. It is requested to fill in the update information in the format given below.
Dr. Ranjan Gupta
Secretary, Astronomical Society of India
IUCAA, Post Bag 4
Ganeshkhind, Pune-411007 (India)
Last Name: _________________________ First Name: _____________________
Membership Type _________ No. ________________
Email: ____________________________________________________________
Telephone: __________________________ Fax: _________________________
Institutional Affiliation (if any) __________________________________________
Institutional Address: __________________________________________________
Postal Address: __________________________________________________
Date: ___________________ Signature:_________________________________
(This information may also be sent by email to: asi@iucaa.ernet.in).
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Option about the Paper Copy of the Bull. ASI:
Members are requested to give their option about receiving the paper copy of the Bulletin of the ASI. Please note that the Editors are now providing the bulletin on the Web. Therefore, those who have easy access to the internet may prefer to discontinue receiving the paper copy of BASI. Your early response will be greatly appreciated. You may send your option by post or email to the Editor of the Bulletin of the ASI.
Bulletin of the ASI
Date: Name and signature of the Member
-posted on
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Prof. Arvind Bhatnagar -An Obituary:
Prof. Arvind Bhatnagar passed away on the evening of May 18, 2006 at
Udaipur following severe cardiac and respiratory complications. He had returned
back to his city, Udaipur, just one day before, on May 17, 2006, after spending
two months in Delhi where he was recuperating from cardiac problems. Although he
was not keeping good health over the last few years, he had retained his
enthusiasm and dynamism as ever to be actively engaged in both research and
social activities. As the Arvind we all knew, he had pushed behind his urgent
personal commitments and rather chose to avail an opportunity to observe the
total solar eclipse of March 29, 2006 from Turkey. While making the arrangements
for his trip, he stretched beyond what his body could take and the cardiac
problems decimated his plans.
Prof. Bhatnagar was known internationally for his significant contributions to Solar Astronomy. He was the founder-director of the Udaipur Solar Observatory. He also took immense interest in popularization of astronomy and helped establishing several planetaria across India. Arvind Bhatnagar was born in Beawar, Rajasthan on 19th November 1936. He had his early education in Agra, Almora and Nainital. After completing his M.Sc. in Physics, he joined the UP State Observatory, Nainital, in 1958 and worked there until 1961. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Solar Physics in 1964 from Agra University while working at the Kodaikanal Observatory under the guidance of Prof. M K. Vainu Bappu. He then worked as a Meteorologist in the India Meteorological Department during 1965-67. He was awarded the Carnegie Fellowship to work at Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, USA, during 1968-70. Afterwards he worked as a Resident Astronomer at the Big Bear Solar Observatory of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA till 1972.
In 1972, Prof. Bhatnagar returned to India to establish a unique island solar observatory in the middle of Lake Fatehsagar in Udaipur under the aegis of the Vedhshala, Ahmedabad. This lake site was carefully selected by him after taking into consideration the facts that Rajasthan received the maximum sunshine and the large body of lake water helps to stabilize the air turbulence arising due to heating of ground by the solar radiation. Due to his efforts, the solar observatory was taken over by the Department of Space in December 1981 for speedy growth, and was affiliated to the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. The Udaipur Solar Observatory has become internationally renowned as one of the major centers for high-resolution solar observations. It is also one of the six observatories located around the world participating in the Global Oscillations Network Group (GONG) for the study of solar interior. In December 1996, Prof. Bhatnagar retired as the director of the Udaipur Solar Observatory, and continued to work on topics related to the solar interior as an Emeritus Scientist. He worked on helioseismology using the GONG data and studied the p-mode frequency shift with the phase of solar cycle. He co-authored with Bill Livingston a fascinating book on solar physics entitled “Fundamentals of Solar Astronomy”, and had recently embarked on another book entitled “Manual for Solar Astronomy – for beginners” funded by DST. He wrote more than 80 papers on a wide variety of problems and edited two books. Prof. Bhatnagar was elected a Fellow of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, India (Allahabad). He was a founder member of the Astronomical Society of India and a member of the International Astronomical Union. Prof. Bhatnagar was the founder Director of the Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai from 1976 to 1978, and advisor to many planetaria in the country, namely Jawahar Planetarium, Allahabad, Nehru Planetarium, Delhi, and Sardar Patel Planetarium, Baroda. He encouraged a number of young students to take up active interest in pursuing scientific activities and also guided several students during their research career. In 1996, Prof. Bhatnagar started a novel project called SUCHE (Swatch, Healthy, Urban, Clean and Hygienic Environment) Abhiyan in several localities of Udaipur under ASTHA Sansthan for solid waste management through public participation. He was also appointed as one of the High Court Commissioners to monitor the directives of the High court in connection with protection of the lake system of Udaipur. In his passing we have lost a person with unique characteristics and capabilities and it will be difficult to fill up this void.
-- posted on May 26, 2006 by A
Ambastha
Nominating
Committee of the ASI (for triennium 2007-2009)
The Nominating Committee has
the responsibility of drawing up a panel of names proposed for election to
positions in the Executive Council of the ASI. It consists of the President, the
immediate Past-President, two elected members from the
General Body and one elected member from the
Executive Council. According to the constitution of the ASI, a Nominating
Committee was elected by the regular and life members of the Society in October
2006, entrusted with the responsibility of proposing a panel of names for
election to various posts in the Executive Council of the ASI for the next
triennium, i.e., 2007-2009. The nominating committee consisted of the
following:
S. N.
Tandon, President, ASI Convener, Nominating Committee
G. Srinivasan
Immediate Past-President, ASI
From General
Body
D.C.V. Mallik
Anil K. Pandey
From Executive
Council
Ashok K. Ambastha
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Announcement of result of election to ASI Executive Committee for the Triennium (2007-2009)
The members
of the Executive Council elected in December 2006 for the triennium
(2007-2009) are:
| President | Dr. J.N.
Goswami Physical Research Laboratory Navrangpura Ahmedabad-380009 |
Tel: 79-26314855, 26308550 Fax: 79-26300374, 26314900 e-mail: director@prl.res.in |
| Vice President | Dr. Swarna K Ghosh Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Homi Bhabha Road, Colaba, Mumbai (Bombay) 400 005 |
Tel: 22-2278 2364 Fax: 22-2280 4610 e-mail: swarna@tifr.res.in |
| Secretary | Dr. Ranjan
Gupta IUCAA Post Bag 4 Ganeshkhind Pune-411007 |
Tel: 20-25604111
(office) 20-25604411/25604471 (Res.) Fax: 20-25604699 e-mail: asi@iucaa.ernet.in |
| Treasurer | Dr. R.C. Kapoor Indian Inst. of Astrophysics Bangalore-560 034 |
Tel: 80-2553 0672 Xtn. 261 Fax: 80-2553 4043 e-mail: rck@iiap.res.in |
| Councillors | Dr
N.M.Ashok Astronomy & Astrophysics Divn Physical Research Laboratory Navrangpura Ahmedabad 380009 |
Tel: 79-26314755, 79-26314613
(Thaltej) 079-26306255 (Residence) Fax: 79-263149000 e-mail: ashok@prl.ernet.in |
| Dr. S. N. Hasan Department of Astronomy Hyderabad-500 007 |
Tel: 040-27097306, 27682247 Fax: 40-2709 9020 e-mail: nhasan@osmania.ac.in, | |
| Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam Indian Institute of Astrophysics Koramangala II Block Bangalore-560034 |
Tel: 080-2553 0672 Fax: 080-2553 4392 e-mail: purni@iiap.res.in | |
| Dr. Harinder Pal Singh Department of Physics and Astrophysics University of Delhi Delhi 110007 |
Tel:
11-27667155, -27666796,
27667793 Fax:11-27667061 e-mail: singh@iucaa.ernet.in |
| Immediate Past-President | Dr. S.N. Tandon Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind Pune-411 007 |
Fax: 20-2560 4699 e-mail: sntandon@iucaa.ernet.in |
| Editor,Bull.ASI (Ex-officio member) | Dr. G. C. Anupama Indian Institute of Astrophysics Bangalore-560 034 |
Tel: 80-2553 0672 |
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25th
Meeting of ASI held during February 7-9, 2007 at Osmania University,
Hyderabad
The 25th meeting of ASI was hosted by Department of
Astronomy, Osmania University, Hyderabad. The meeting was well attended by over
140 participants. A very exciting scientific program was drawn up by the
SOC chaired by Dr. K. Subramaniam (IUCAA, Pune), consisting of 24 invited talks,
2 evening lectures, 8 thesis presentations and 117 poster papers. A special
highlight of this meeting was the "Prize Talks" by the Vainu Bappu Gold Medal
Awardees for the Year 2004, Dr. R. Srianand (IUCAA) and Dr. Ray Jayawardhana
(Univ. Toronto, Canada). The scientific sessions were held in Vainu Bappu Gold Medal-2004:
Announcement for Vainu Bappu
Gold Medal 2004 was made through BASI, SolarNews (Electronic Newsletter), AAS
Bulletin, IAU, by post to more than 50 distinguished researchers both within the
country and abroad, and to directors/heads of various institutes. In response,
three nominations were received. A panel under the chairmanship of Dr. G.
Srinivasan was constituted by the President for evaluating the nominations, with
Drs. SM Chitre, A Pramesh Rao, T Prabhu and SK Ghosh as members. The M.K. Vainu
Bappu Gold Medal of the Astronomical Society of India for the year 2004 was
jointly awarded to Dr. Raghunanathan Srianand of Inter University Centre for
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India, and Dr. Ray Jayawardhana of the
University of Toronto, Canada. The gold medals, certificates and citations were
presented to the awardees at the 25th Meeting of the ASI on February 7, 2007,
where they also gave their talks.
The citation of Dr. Jayawardhana reads: “The M.K. Vainu Bappu Gold Medal of the Astronomical Society of India for the year 2004 is awarded to Dr. Ray Jayawardhana of the University of Toronto, Canada, for his outstanding contributions to the area of star formation and sub-stellar objects. He shares this award with Dr. R. Srianand of Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India. Dr. Jayawardhana’s major scientific contributions have been in understanding evolution of sub-stellar objects. He and his collaborators have shown that majority of brown dwarfs have disks similar to young stars, and young brown dwarfs go through an accretion phase. Dr. Jayawardhana and his collaborators have provided strong evidence suggesting that formation of brown dwarfs is merely an extension of star formation".
Best Poster Paper Awards:
Sun and Solar
System (S) - Seeing Induced Cross-talk in Filter-based
Velocity Measurements by P. Sreejith (ISRO, Bangalore), R. Sridharan (Space
Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, USA, and K. Sankarasubramanian (ISRO,
Bangalore).
Stars and
Galaxies (G) - New
Results on Radio Emission from the Transient Bursting Source GCRTJ 1745-3009 by
Subhashis Roy (ASTRON, the Netherlands), Scott Hyman (ASTRON, the
Netherlands), Sabyasaachi Pal (NCRA, Pune), T. Joseph
(NCRA, Pune), W. Lazio Paul (ASTRON, the Netherlands), S. Ray (NCRA,
Pune) , Namir E. Kassim (ASTRON, the Netherlands) and Sanjay Bhatnagar
(NCRA, Pune).
ExtraGalactic
Astronomy and Cosmology (E) - Multi-frequency Radio Continuum
Observations of Nearby Spiral Galaxies: NGC 2997, NGC 4565 by Jitendra Kodilkar
(NCRA, Pune), Nimisha Kantharia (NCRA, Pune) and S. Ananthakrishnan (NCRA,
Pune).
Instrumentation
(I) - Jointly to (i)
Proposed Adaptive Optics System for Vainu Bappu Telescope by A. K. Saxena (IIA,
Bangalore), V. Chinnappan (IIA, Bangalore) and J. P. Lancelot (IIA,
Bangalore), and (ii) Feasibility of using ANN-based Algorithms for Improving the
Sensitivity of TACTIC Imaging Telescope by V.K. Dhar (BARC, Mumbai), A.K. Tickoo
(BARC, Mumbai), M.K. Koul (BARC, Mumbai), R. Koul (BARC, Mumbai)
and B.P. Dubey (BARC,
Mumbai).
Best Presentation of
Thesis Award
Amrit Lal Ahuja
(IUCAA, Pune) for his thesis talk entitled "Study of Pulsar DM using the GMRT",
and
Anand Hota (NCRA-TIFR,
Pune) for his thesis talk entitled "A Radio Study of Gas
Loss Processes in Nearby
Galaxies".
Young Astronomer Award for
2007
This
award is shared by Sabyasachi Pal (Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata) and Samir
Mandal (Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata); first author and co-author of the
paper who are below the age of 35 years. The result was announced during the
ASI2007-GBM.
-posted on February 14, 2007
26th General Body Meeting of ASI held on February 27, 2008 at NSSS08 at RAC, Ooty.
A condolence message was read for
Prof. K.D. Abhayankar who had passed
away on 8th Nov 2007. Outcome of the VB2006 award was announced to the GB.
The President mentioned that it is matter of pride that two ASI members
(Yashawant Gupta and Anil Bharadwaj) have received the SS Bhatnagar Awards
in Physics and Planetary Sciences, respectively, for the year 2007. The
planning for 27th ASI meeting was discussed. Finally the role to be played
by ASI in the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) was also
discussed.
27th Meeting of the Astronomical Society of India 2009 February 18-20
IIA hosted the meeting of the Astronomical Society of
India after a gap of 23 years. The meeting was held in
the IIA campus, and had over 250 participants. The
Presidential address by Jitendra Nath Goswami was
followed by the award ceremony of the Vainu Bappu
Memorial Gold Medal (VB2006). The awardee, Banibrata
Mukhopadhyay of IISc delivered the Vainu Bappu award
lecture, entitled 'Measuring Spin of Black holes from their
QPOs: A Test of General Relativity'.
The special scientific features of the meeting were twomini-symposia, 'The Dynamic Sun' and 'Star-formation
History'. There were 17 invited scientific talks on solar,stellar, Galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, and over
160 poster presentations. Specific time of 3 hours was
allotted for poster-viewing and interactions, besides which
five rapporteurs summarised the posters in the plenary
session. There were six talks in the customary session
for PhD theses summaries. There was a session entitled
'New Initiatives', which included talks describing new
astronomy and data facilities in the country, as well as
one on the outreach initiatives by Vigyan Prasar of DST.
Jayant Narlikar delivered an evening lecture titled 'How
Astronomy has Contributed to Enrichment and Survival
of Human Societies' to a packed auditorium that included
members of the public. A notable feature of the ASI was
a late-evening 'reminiscences' session, in which the past
presidents of ASI dwelt on the contributions by the late
Krishna Damodar Abhyankar, his initiation of the
formation of the ASI and later, his persistent efforts to
sustain it.
There was a parallel meeting of the Forum for Resource
Sharing in Astronomy, in which librarians of IIA, RRI,
TIFR, IUCAA, NCRA and ARIES came together to
discuss digitisation projects, and implementation of open
access repositories. In addition, IIA organised a digital
exhibit of astronomical photography by amateur
astronomers, and the performance of a play on Galileo.
G. C. Anupama was Convenor of the local organising
committee, which received excellent support from the
administrative, computer support and library staff of IIA.
In addition to IIA, the meeting was sponsored by PRL,
IUCAA, ARIES, ISRO, TIFR, RRI and HRI, and also
received support from Allied Publications, Cambridge
University Press and Elsevier Science.
Special ASI sponsored session at Bangalore Planetarium:
On 17th February, 2009, the day before the scientific sessions of ASI
began, ASI and Bangalore Planetarium co-organized a special session on
'Amateur astronomy: Pro-Am collaboration' at Bangalore Planetarium. The
lectures covered various aspects of amateur astronomy and possible
collaboration. It was attended by over 100 particiapnts from all over
India and offered scope for plenty of discussions and interactions. The
astrophotoes by amateurs were displayed.
President, ASI inaugurating the Special Amateur Astronomy session
at Bangalore Planetarium
Vainu Bappu 2006 Award
Announcement for Vainu Bappu Gold Medal 2006 was made through BASI, ASI
web page, emails to ASI members and other distinguished researchers both
within the country and abroad, and to directors/heads of various
institutes. In response, seven nominations were received. A panel under
the chairmanship of Rajaram Nityananda was constituted by the ASI
President for evaluating the nominations, with K.P. Singh, N. Hasan and
B.G. Ananda Rao as members. The M.K. Vainu Bappu Gold Medal of the
Astronomical Society of India for the year 2006 was awarded to Dr.
Banibrata Mukhopadhyay of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The gold
medal, certificate and citation were presented to the awardee at the 27th
Meeting of the ASI on February 18, 2009, where he also gave the Vainu
Bappu Award lecture.
The citation of Dr. Banibrata Mukhopadhyay reads:
'The M. K. Vainu Bappu Medal of the Astronomical Society of India for the
year 2006 is awarded to Dr. Banibrata Mukhopdhyay of the Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore, India for his outstanding contributions to
Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Dr. Mukhopadhyay's major scientific contributions have been in the field
of astrophysical fluid dynamics and astroparticle physics. He has proposed
a new method to study relativistic accretion flows in pseudo-Newtonian (or
pseudo-general relativistic) approach. His major contribution to
astroparticle physics and cosmology is to show that under certain
circumstances, spinor fields in curved spacetime break the CPT
invariance.'
Best Thesis Presentation Awards given during 27th ASI meeting at IIA,
Bangalore during 18-20 Feb 2009 (A certificate & Rs. 20,000/- each ):
Jointly awarded to:
Piyali Chatterjee (TIFR, Mumbai)
Thesis entitled 'Solar magnetic fields: their generation, evolution
and variability'
and
Sanjay Gosain (PRL, Ahmedabad)
Thesis entitled 'USO Solar vector magnetograph: a new instrument for solar
photometry'
Best Poster Awards given during 27th ASI meeting at IIA, Bangalore during
18-20 Feb 2009 (A certificate & Rs.5000/- in each of the four categories):
(i) Sun and the Solar System
On the statistical detection of propagating waves in polar coronal holes
Girjesh Gupta, E O'shea, Dipankar Banerjee, M Popescu and JG Doyle
IIA, Bangalore and Armagh Observatory, Ireland
(ii) Stars and the Galaxy
Kaushar Vaidya, You-hua Chu, Robert Gruendl, C-h Rosie Chen, I-jen Lee
University of Illinois at Urbana-champaign, USA and
University of Virginia, USA
(iii) Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology
H-I and radio continuum emission from the interacting galaxy system: Arp86
Chandreyee Sengupta, KS Dwarkanath and DJ Saikia
NCRA, Pune and RRI, Bangalore
(iv)Instrumentation
Design and development of optical fibre based integral field
unit (IFU) for 2-D spectroscopy
Mudit Srivastava and AN Ramaprakash
IUCAA, Pune
IYA 2009 Lectures Sponsored by ASI
--Last updated in JAN 2010 by Prof. Ranjan Gupta