AR_final file_2018-19

Somak Raychaudhury Director, IUCAA, Pune. continues to grow and thrive. Regular Second Saturday Lecture/Demonstration Programmes for local school students have been conducted, and just this activity has reached to over 10,000 students this year, while the National Science Day activities have been attended by more than 12,000 people. Every year, closer to the National Science Day, we have activities and science competitions in IUCAA campus, and in IUCAA Girawali Observatory region. In addition to this, this year, we have conducted parallel programmes involving students and teachers of schools in the Hingoli district of Maharashtra. Public visits have been conducted on Thursdays, and sky watching programmes on Fridays every month, as per the sky conditions. Public outreach in the form of activities and science competitions for students and teachers of schools in rural areas, in Pune, Satara, and Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra, is a regular feature of the IUCAA’s science popularisation programme. We have been at the forefront of fundamental research, and the development of teaching pedagogy, in almost all branches of A & A, Cosmology and Theoretical Physics at the national and international level, for three decades. The world-leading research at IUCAA, and at Indian Universities through the network of IUCAA Visiting Associates, owes a great deal to the hard- working and talented staff (both core and contractual) working at our institution. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to every one of them, and to our mentors, the Governing Board with Dr. K. Kasturirangan (and until recently Dr. Srikumar Banerjee) as Chair, and the Council, chaired by Dr. Dhirendra P. Singh, Chairman of the UGC. We sincerely acknowledge the help, advice and support from the University Grants Commission, its officers and staff, and from the Ministry of Human Resource Development. ( 18 )