24-05-2025
Presi alumnus donates 20L to School of Astrophysics for infra upgrade
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Kolkata: An IIT-Bombay professor, a physics alumnus of the 1993 batch of Presidency College, now Presidency University, donated Rs 20 lakh to the School of Astrophysics to support academic programmes and enhance its infrastructure.
The professor, who requested anonymity, contacted the school's assistant professor, Suchetana Chatterjee, a few months ago and expressed his wish to contribute to the academic development of the department. "It was a few months ago that he communicated that he wanted to make some contribution to the academic progress of the School of Astrophysics as a gift to his alma mater," said Chatterjee, adding that he paid in tranches and the last amount was received in April.
Registrar Debajyoti Konar said, "We are reaching out to our alumni for the development of the university. We are delighted after receiving this contribution. This will be a great help for the School of Astrophysics."
The school was carved out of the existing physics department and started functioning in June 2022. It also started a full-fledged Master's course in the same year. Chatterjee said, "Around Rs 10 lakh will be utilised to build office spaces for their PhD students, and the rest will go to an endowment fund, which will be used to fund student internships as there is an observatory internship course in our MSc curriculum.
The amount will also be utilised for conference participation, publication in international journals, and procurement and maintenance of lab equipment."
Coordinator of the School of Astrophysics, Saumyadip Samui, said, "It is the largest donation by an individual to the department. We are grateful for this support. It will help us to organise extensive visitor programmes."
Presidency has a century-old association with astronomy. An observatory — The Calcutta Observatory — was set up on the roof of the Main Building in 1905 by the then Bengal government. It had two equatorial telescopes — one with a 7-inch aperture from Sir H Grubb and another with a 4.5-inch aperture by T Cooke and Sons. Regular observations of solar system planets and other objects were made and reported in the journals published by the early Astronomical Society of India in Calcutta.
The university is now restoring this heritage of astronomy research at Presidency and renovating the observatory with a new 12-inch optical telescope.
