Smriti Mahajan

At a time when the United States’ government has withdrawn majority of funds from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), impacting various upcoming and ongoing astronomy missions and facilities, the Government of India (GoI) granted funds to build the National Large Solar Telescope (NLST), the National Large Optical-infrared Telescope (NLOT), and the COSMOS-2 (Cosmology Education and Research Training Centre) planetarium, and to upgrade the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) operating in Ladakh.

This strategic investment in astronomical infrastructure comes at a time when Bharat is increasing its dominance in the global space sector through active participation in large multinational projects, as well as time-bound achievement of milestones in space-related research and engineering projects of national significance. The newly allocated funds in the union budget, therefore highlights GoI’s commitment to support the research and development efforts of the Indian astronomical community…read more on NOPR