Padma Vibhushan Prof JV Narlikar, an internationally acclaimed proponent of steady State cosmology specially flew in from Pune with his mathematics wizard wife Dr Mangala Narlikar on a two day visit to UPES. Prof Narlikar has devoted his entire life towards research in Astronomical Sciences. He received the ‘Padma Bushan’ at the young age of only 26 years in 1965 and 46 years later was awarded the ‘Padam Vibhushan’ in 2011. He has been the President of “Cosmology Commission of the International Astronomical Union” from 1994 to 1997.
His lecture titled “Searches for Extra terrestrial life: An Indian Experiment” was spell binding and was attended by a packed house consisting of both teachers and students. He shared the various researches which have been done over the years at the global level to ascertain whether any kind of life exists outside of our planet. He then explained in detail the two experiments carried out by he and his team in collaboration with ISRO in 2001 and 2005 wherein they had designed a pay load to accumulate various samples of organisms, bacteria’s, viruses etc available at a height of more than 40kms above the surface of earth . This was done in association with ISRO and by means of a large sized gas fired balloon.
After his lectures Professor Narlikar also interacted with the audience and cleared all their doubts and answered all their questions. Sharing his thoughts after the lecture Mr Arun Dhand – Director for Media Affairs in UPES said “that the best part about his talk was its simplicity. Professor Narlikar was able to explain the mammoth sized and unknown cosmic world in a way that could be understood even by a 6th class student”.
The Vice Chancellor of UPES – Dr Honwad Shrihari introduced Professor Narlikar to the audience with details of all his accomplishments. Present on this occasion was the Chancellor- Dr S J Chopra, Dr (Mrs) Mangala Narlikar and other senior management of UPES, faculty members and students.