Khagol # 125 - Jan 2020 - Eng & Hindi

| KHAG L | No. 125 - JANUARY 2021 | 07 Dark Matter Day Dark Matter Day is an international event, that aims to shed light on the mystery on Dark Matter. From 2020, October 31 is celebrated as the 'DarkMatter Day' worldwide, which spreads the word about themany fascinatingways scientists search for Dark Matter, and the importance of devoting scientific resources to unravel this cosmic riddle. To celebrate the occasion and to share the research going on in the field with the general public, IUCAA SciPOP organised a live Q&A session with the IUCAA scientists: Somak Raychaudhury, Surhud More, Aseem Paranjape, and Anupreeta More. Questions collected from the general public in advance as well as questions from live chat were addressed, and was moderated by SurhudMore. PuLastya Science Festival To cherish the relationship of late Shri. P. L. Deshpande and his wife, late Smt. Sunitabai Deshpande with IUCAA, the PuLastya Science Festival has been celebrated annually, and this year, it was celebrated during November 7 – 8, 2020 virtually. Welcomed by Samir Dhurde, and Somak Raychaudhury, and inaugurated by Surhud More, a popular talk on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 was delivered by Ajit Kembhavi (IUCAA), in Marathi, on the evening of November 8. Informative videos with hands-on fun activities related to Covid awareness, and Astronomy were made by Shivani Pethe, and Sonal Thorve with the help of Ishan Shinde. Ruchika Seth, Yash Bhargava, Siddharth Maharana, Vaishak Prasad, Parisee Shirke, Ashish Mhaske, Shreejit Jadhav (all from IUCAA) interactedwith the audience by answering their live questions as well as questions collected earlier. Ankit Bhandari (IUCAA) moderated the session, and Atharva Pathak and Tushar Purohit (both from IUCAA) took care of the live sky-watch sessions. Ishan Shinde took care of streaming the events live. With the efforts of the whole SciPOP team (working on-site and off-site) made this virtual festival a great success. The event was hosted and coordinated by Sonal Thorve. During the festival, we could reach thousands of local as well as national viewers. The content was greatly appreciated by the audience. Diwali Special Video Series A Diwali Special Video Series was released, during November 16 – 21, 2020, on the occasion of festival of lights. Theme of the series was science behind a fewDiwali special customs, like lamps, crackers and the celestial sources of light. The activity was designed and coordinated by Rupesh Labade.