29th Annual Report (2016-17)

207 Lectures/Seminars/Colloquia Public Outreach Programmes An era of astronomical surveys with SDSS by Vivek M. ( University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA), July 13, 2016. Probing the dark Universe by V.C. Kuriakose (CUSAT), March 18, 2017. The Coordinator has given the following lectures in other colleges/institutions: Radiative processes in astrophysics (Series of lectures) at the Department of Astrophysics, Pondicherry University, October 24 - 28, 2016. PT symmetric non-linear systems (V SERC School on Non-linear Dynamics) at the P.S.G. College of Technology, Coimbatore, December 16, 2016. Exploring the sky at the M.E.S. College, Marampilly, March 9, 2017. Physics: Scope awareness programme for school students This programme was organized at the Department of Physics, CUSAT for school students, during April 04 – 08, 2016, in collaboration with IRC, Kochi. The students were given training in assembling small telescopes. There were also lectures on basicAstronomy andAstrophysics, and topics in Physics. In addition to lectures, the students were given training on doing experiments in physics and they were given opportunity to visit different research laboratories in the department. There were 40 participants from different schools in Kerala. Talks on basic Astronomy and demonstration to make small telescopes This was conducted at the Federal Institute of Science and Technology (FISAT), Mukkannoor, for school students, on January 28, 2017. Lectures, demonstration to make small telescope and sky watching This programme was conducted for B.Sc. andM.Sc. students of the N.S.S. College, Ottapalam, onMarch 3, 2017. The present research scholars, Jishnu Suresh and Lini Deavssy, and former research students, Nijo Varghese, Tharanath R. and Saneesh Sebastian have rendered valuable services in making the public outreach programmes and other IRC activities a great success.