Khagol Bulletin # 131

The Kerala Story The Kerala story has multiple pathways, and the present narration is just one of them. The other two originated in Trivandrum and Cochin University (CUSAT). It all started with Ajit Kembhavi's visit to Cochin University to promote astronomy research, where Moncy V John (standing with his wife and two kids on the right of Naresh Dadhich in the first figure) and I were doing our PhD. Ajit Kembhavi, as always, gave us a very enthusiastic narration of the opportunities in doing research with worldwide connectivity (at that time through the Education and Research Network of India ERNET) and the upcoming opportunities in astronomy. We, dependent on the university library internet connectivity for getting research abstracts of journals, were overwhelmed by the offer and asked Ajit Kembhavi whether he would be willing to extend these facilities to our college. As usual, his answer was Yes! More than that, he offered to drop in at our college on his way to Trivandrum. We returned to college and informed the manager, Mar Chrysostom [leftmost in the second figure with Jayant Narlikar (Director, IUCAA), Naresh Dadhich, Ajit Kembhavi (both later became directors of IUCAA) and K. Babu Joseph (later became v i c e - c h a n c e l l o r o f CUSAT ) ] , wh o immediately initiated the arrangements for the meeting. A computer was set up, and his personal phone connection was offered for a dial-up STD connection to IISc Bangalore. When Ajit Kembhavi arrived, he came with a domain name stthom.ernet.in and a dial-up connection to IISc Bangalore. St Thomas College turned out to be the first college in the country to have an ERNET domain name and full internet connectivity (well, ten kbps was the maximum speed in those days for dial-up connection!). It was just the beginning of a newera. Over the past few decades, Astronomy and Astrophysics have taken a strong foothold in the southern reaches of India. An integral component of this has been the early interaction of IUCAA scientists with university researchers in Kerala, which further spread to other areas. In this article, I recount below this journey of A&A research and activities in Kerala: the Kerala story. Fig.1 This is a 1997 Charal Mount, Kerala workshop photograph. In the picture from left, T Georg Varghese (HoD of Physics, St Thomas College, Kozhencherry), Ajit Kembhavi, the author and his family andNareshDadhich, Moncy and his family. Fig.2 This is a photograph taken during the publicmeeting held during the 1997 workshop. From left, Rt. Rev Mar Chisostom, Jayant Narlikar, Babu Joseph (CUSAT), Ajit Kembhavi andProf. NareshDadhich. In December 1997, the state had the first IUCAA workshop with the participation of faculty from several colleges in and around central Kerala (the second figure is a photograph from the public meeting held during that workshop). Joe Jacob from Newman College, Thodupuzha, was one of the participants, and, in later years, he coordinated outreach activities of IUCAA all over Kerala with his inborn skill. The other person who is not with us anymore but has contributed a substantial role in the outreach activities of IUCAA in the state is V CKuriakose fromCochinUniversity. In 1999, a mini-workshop on computer astronomy was held at Charal Mount, a hill campus near St Thomas College, where Y o g e s h W a d a d e k a r a n d S a r a h Ponarathnam came with three computers from IUCAA to give training to the The same year, the IUCAA Resource Center was set up at CUSAT under the eminent leadership of V C Kuriakose. Though V.C. Kuriakose himself was a theoretical phys i c i s t , h i s con t r i bu t i on t o t he popularisation of astronomy and the conduct of workshops, training programs, etc., in colleges and universities across the s t a t e i s i nnume rab l e . No t ab l y, he conducted dozens of telescope-building programs for school students. It is right to say that the Kerala astronomy activities are participants. They set up a computer network of half a dozen computers for hands-on training. To appreciate the efforts appropriately, one should look at the computing facility IUCAA had in those days (Fig 3). Not surprisingly, the workshop was well accepted and resulted in great motivation for everyone involved. | 05 | KHAG L | No. 131 - JANUARY 2024