Abstract
Govind Swarup put radio astronomy in India on the world stage with the indigenous construction of state-of-the-art radio telescopes at low radio frequencies, incorporating many innovative features. A passionate scientist and an educator with unbounded enthusiasm and energy, he has been a source of inspiration for the academic and scientific community. This article traces his life and contributions, with some reminiscences that are likely to touch, motivate and inspire the young readers of Resonance, just as it has many of us who have had the privilege of working with him.
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Acknowledgement
I thank N. Sathyamurthy, former Chief Editor of Resonance for his invitation to write this piece, and S. Ananthakrishnan, Avinash Deshpande, Bhal Chandra Joshi, Divya Oberoi and N. Sathyamurthy for their detailed comments on the manuscript. I thank Ron Ekers for the picture of the four Grote Reber Gold Medal winners, now part of the NCRA-TIFR Archives, and a copy of his PPT presentation of the Govind Swarup Memorial Lecture, which was very helpful. I thank Stanford University Archives and NCRA-TIFR Archives for permission to use the figures.
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D J Saikia heads the Teaching Learning Centre and National Resource Centre for astronomy and astrophysics at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA). He was a PhD student of Govind Swarup and Vijay Kapahi, and was engaged in research and teaching for over forty years at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He was the founding Vice-Chancellor of Cotton University at Guwahati. His research interests have been largely on extragalactic astronomy, and more recently on education and related policy issues, with an emphasis on higher education.
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Saikia, D.J. Govind Swarup. Reson 26, 869–893 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-021-1190-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-021-1190-4