Monday, 13 January 2025

One day at GMRT..

Lately, it appears that the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT), maintained and operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA-TIFR), is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Off the Pune-Nashik Road, thirty huge radio antenna of the GMRT nestle in the relatively radio-quiet region near Narayangaon. But the aspirations of the local people, in the form of a proposed Pune-Nashik railway line, threaten its existence. The electromagnetic (and other) noise that would arrive at GMRT with the railway line (proposed to go through Narayangaon) and associated industrial & commercial build up would make GMRT useless for the scientists who strain to hear the faint murmurs of the Universe over and above the man-made radio interference (RFI). It has been suggested that GMRT should 'shift' out.

For a facility like GMRT, built and brought into its present shape through careful planning, continuous modifications and upgrades made possible through dedicated hard work of scientists, engineers and support staff over decades, 'shift' is not an option. It is either allowd to function unhindered or it is shut down. Thankfully, the intervention from the top echelons of the government has ensured that GMRT continues to 'exist' and the proposed railway takes a different route.

Summer of 1988. The Radio Astroonmy Group (TIFR), led by Prof. Govind Swarup, was busy planning and transitioning GMRT from the drawing boards to the hilly terrains of the Junnar taluka, while a group of young undergraduates travelled from the banks of Ganga (in Uttar Pradesh) to the shores of Arabian Sea to take part in the visiting students research program (VSRP, TIFR), likely the first such undergraduate internship program of the country. 

Summer of 2023. Much water has flown down the Ganga and undergraduate research internship has become commonplace. Prof. K Vijayraghavan, former PSA and distinguished alumni of TIFR, now gets the wheels turning for the move forward. It results in the Lodha Genius Program (LGP), a partnership between the Ashoka University and the Lodha Group of Industries, to mentor bright young high-school students and offer them an opportunity for advanced learning.   

Opportune academic connections made one of those VSRP students from 1988, with a head full of white hairs now, to undertake a journey from the land of the Peshwas to a village from the times of Mahabharata (Sonipat or Swarnaprastha, one those five villages that were requested by Pandavas, refused by Kauravas, and eneded up setting the flame of Kurukshetra war aflame) to mentor some of these bright young things a flavour of Astrophysics. :) 

2024. The updated version of the program introduced four-month long follow-up "remote" courses in addition to the summer activities. A bunch of IX-XII graders enrolled for a course very ambitiously titled as 'Physics of Astrophysics'. Despite their myriad exams and engagements, the children made serious effor to learn things that are `out of syllabus', submitted assignments, wrote movie reviews and even composed their own science fiction (SF) stories based on the concepts learnt in the course! Their reward? A trip to GMRT.   

January, 2025. So they arrived, accompanied by their course TA Tannuvi (Physics, Ashoka University) and LGP coordinators Rayhan and Chavi , at NCRA-TIFR, Pune on the 9th of January. From the morning of the 10th, scientists at NCRA-TIFR, my dear friends, happily took time out of their extremely busy schedules and had long sessions with them - telling them about their own research, answering their questions and making them understand what it really means to be a research scientist! The energetic kids showed no signs of tiring after such an intense day and happily trooped down for a visit to the IUCAA science centre, finishing the day off with a bit of stargazing.

With Yashwant Gupta, Centre Director, NCRA-TIFR


Cosmological chat with Tirthankar Roy Choudhury 
'breakfast pe charcha' with Yogesh Wadadekar


Detecting Pulsars with GMRT, Jayanta Roy
Active Galactic Nuclei with Preeti Kharb



Divya Oberoi, the solar physicist.
An impression by Rayhan


Off we went to GMRT, the next morning. Those majestic radio antennae, turning slowly to tune into the faint whispers of celestial sources at distances incomprehensible to the human mind, never fail to impress even those who have seen them again and again. The youngsters were awestruck! Their excitement in trying to understand the workings of the intricate system of motors moving the huge antennae and the complexity of the control room operations, was quite palpable. Getting a glimpse of one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, PARAM-RUDRA, performing five quadrillion calculations per second in an effort to provide insights into the fundamental properties of matter and the universe, added to the experience. 

GMRT Control Room


PARAM-RUDRA, The Supercomputer









After dinner SF session.
Children will be children..
Freindships will be forged..
And adults must tag along.. 
Chavi, Sushan, Rayhan, Tannuvi


It was time to read out their own SF stories, after dinner. Amazing conceptualisation, great writing skills (complete with theatrical rendition in one case) - today's youngsters are really talented! Something else, that has been taking shape all this while, also became very evident at this point. To allow the telescope to function successfully, we must remove as much RFI as possible. So, it is mandatory to switch off the mobile phones. For today's youngsters that is something of a paradigm shift, to not be connected to the world by a small rectangular device. They suddenly found a differnt world, the found the people around them. All of a sudden, intense conversations and exchange of ideas were happening, games were being played in which everyone joined.. Suddenly, all their energy was out in the open instead of being channelled digitally out.. 😊

I could not have asked for a better finale. Of course, it could never have happened without the amazing support of the scientists and the staff of NCRA-TIFR (both at its Pune campus and at GMRT, Khodad). To be honest, they supported the activity not because most of them are personal friends. It has been a long cherished tradition of the GMRT to welcome visitors; in particular, bright young students curious about the workings of the Universe.  

Straddling two worlds (active research and education), as I do at this point of my life, I am thankful to be at this juncture. GMRT allows us, Astrophysicists to sift the data in an attempt to understand the Universe. It also stands sentinel over the next generation, helping them to take the leap from being a curious onlooker to an active scientist trying in not so distant a future. 


The LGP cohort with Kaushal Buch & Team


One day at GMRT..

Lately, it appears that the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT), maintained and operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (N...