Khagol 118

Annual Refresher Programme in Teaching (ARPIT 2018) | KHAG L | No. 118 - APRIL 2019 | 11 TheNational Student Seminar on Frontiers in Physics (FiP) is a series, where faculty members, scientists, and industrialists from all over India and abroad are invited to give lectures, and interact with students in frontier areas of physics. This is an annual event, which is organised by the members of Astro Club, Department of Physics, Fergusson College (FC), Pune. For the 12th series of FiP, conducted during February 1 - 2, 2019, an Observational Astronomy session was arranged for the participants on the evening of the first day. National Student Seminar on Frontiers in Physics The sessions were initiated by Jitendra Joshi and Soham K. (both students of FC), with an introduction to the night sky and the basics of astronomy, and use of star dial. This was followed by an introduction to Stellarium. Manish Hirey conducted the main observation session, which included basics of telescopes and a hands-on approach on a 9.5 inch Cassegrain telescope and use of photometer, and CCD. The observatory dome fascinated many participants. Raka Dabhade (Head, Department of Physics, FC), and Ranjeev Misra (IUCAA) were the coordinators. Workshop on Astronomy and Astrophysics A Workshop on Astronomy and Astrophysics was held at SikkimUniversity, Gangtok, duringMarch 29 - 31, 2019. It was inaugurated by the Vice-Chancellor Avinash Khare, and the participants, about 60, came largely fromGangtok and nearby places, and a few from North Bengal. The topics covered included: Stars and Stellar Systems by Sukanta Deb (Cotton University, Guwahati), Galaxies and their Evolution by Kanak Saha (IUCAA), Active Galaxies and Aspects of Observational Astronomy by Dhruba J. Saikia (IUCAA), Gravitation and Cosmology by Debasish Borah (IIT, Guwahati), and Gravitational Waves and Dark Matter by Bikash Paul (North Bengal University, Siliguri). On the last day of the workshop, there was an enlightening evening talk by Avinash Khare on the historical development of the General Theory of Relativity, examining largely the contributions of Einstein and Hilbert. The workshop was coordinated by Subir Mukhopdhyay (SikkimUniversity), andDhruba J. Saikia. The National Resource Centre at IUCAA has developed a broad-based course on astronomy and astrophysics for the Annual Refresher Programme in Teaching (ARPIT 2018), consisting of 57 videos spread across 11 modules, along with multiple-choice questions for each video, and suggestions for further readings. These videos have been offered on SWAYAM platform for college/university teachers. Themodules covered a wide range of topics, which included: General Theory of Relativity, Gravitational Waves, Quantum Gravity, Cosmology and Large-Scale Structure, Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies, Physics of Compact Objects, the Sun, Solar Wind and Planetary Systems, ObservationalAstronomy,Astronomy from Archival Data, Time-Domain Astronomy, and Astrostatistics. These video presentations were made by 27 resource persons from 11 institutions of higher education and research, spread across the country. They have highlighted the recent developments in the respective areas, touching upon the basic required pedagogy, and emphasising emerging areas in the field. Over 1300 participants registered for the course, whichwaswell receivedwith a rating of 4.8 out of 5.