International Year of Astronomy 2009
India National Node

Organizational Structure

Indian National Science Academy (INSA) has recently constituted the National Committee of IAU under the Chairmanship of T.Padmanabhan (IUCAA) which, among other tasks, will also be involved in co-ordinating the national level activities for the IYA09 in India. The other members of the INSA-IAU Committee are: J.S.Bagla (HRI), D.Bhattacharya (IUCAA), S.K.Ghosh (TIFR), S.Seetha (ISRO)

Working groups have been formed that have members from different organizations and from different regions of the country. At present there are two working groups, one representing the academic institutions and the other for organizations which are active in science popularization.

The broad agenda for the working group is to plan and to advice on the implementation of various programs conducted by different organizations. They would monitor the progress of such programs and facilitate information exchange between various local initiatives. They will also be responsible for  the coordination of national-level integrated activities.

The list of the two working groups and the organization to which they belong is available here.
                                                 Academics  :::: Public Outreach

There are several organizations that are planning to have Public Outreach Programmes which will involve national media including television, radio newspapers, magazines etc. to highlight different aspects of
astronomy in a manner accessible to the lay public. There are also plans to distribute electronic media material like CDs to the lay public as well as booklets and brochures. It was felt that these activities could be streamlined better and considerable amount of duplication of effort can be avoided if there is a national committee which can coordinate these activities. A committee called `Media Outreach Committee in Astronomy (MOCA)'   under the chairmanship of Prof. J. V. Narlikar has been set up to coordinate these activities. The list of committee members is available here.