Positioning astronomy
Photographs: Indranil Paul A lot can be learnt from a 78-year-old scientist who just refuses to fade like the stars, writes Mathures Paul Stars fade but Professor Amalendu Bandyopadhyay’s interest in them remains undiminished. With a small suitcase filled with a telescope and slides, he has travelled to every corner of India to give lessons in astronomy, to dispel misconceptions and put astrology in its right place. A senior scientist at the MP Birla Institute of Fundamental Research, MP Birla Planetarium, Kolkata, he has been instrumental in introducing the postgraduate diploma course in Astronomy and Planetarium Sciences and can, in a few simple words, explain the complex movements of planets and stars (as readers of this newspaper will have have realised from his regular and exclusive contributions to these columns). The 78-year-old Bandyopadhyay has visited remote corners of the country to explain astronomical concepts to children — an activity that has won him accolades from the s...