Physics News

Govind SwarupThe end of an era and the beginning of an enduring legacy

Divya Oberoi and Poonam Chandra

National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,Savitribai Phule Pune University Campus, Pune 411 007, Maharashtra, INDIAEmail: div@ncra.tifr.res.in; poonam@ncra.tifr.res.in

Divya Oberoi completed his Ph.D. as a part of the Joint Astronomy Programme at the NationalCentre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. After a decade ofresearch at the Haystack Observatory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA he joined NCRAin 2012. His research focuses on exploring the mysteries of the Sun and the heliosphere especiallyusing observations at radio wavelengths, the techniques of interferometric imaging, and developingalgorithms for extracting information from data.

Poonam Chandra is an Astrophysicist working at National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of TataInstitute of Fundamental Research. Her research interests involve massive stars, supernovae,supernova remnants, gamma-ray bursts and electromagnetic counterparts of gamma ray bursts. Sheis a recipient of the Indian National Science Academy young scientist award, International Unionfor Pure and Applied Physics young scientist award and the Department of Science & TechnologySwarnaJayanti award.

Abstract

This article is a tribute to Prof. Govind Swarup, a towering figure in the Indian and global astronomy community. From thehumble beginning of building the very first radio interferometer in India, to indigenously designing and building two of themost innovative and sensitive radio telescopes anywhere in the world – the Ooty Radio Telescope and the Giant MetrewaveRadio Telescope – Prof. Swarup is widely credited with establishing the discipline of radio astronomy in India. Not onlydid these instruments and the institution he created firmly established India as a global leader, they became the trainingground for generations of astronomers and engineers as they pursued the careers they had strived for. His contributions gowell beyond radio astronomy and even astronomy, from the emphasis on development of indigenous technology to settingup institutions of higher education in science. This is the brief story of the life and achievements of Govind, and the legacyhe has left for us to build on. We firmly believe that he will continue to inspire generations of young and curious minds, justthe way he inspired us.

IntroductionOn the 7th of September, 2020, when Prof. Govind

Swarup bid adieu to us all, India and the world lost a majorpillar of Astronomy. He lived his life with true vigour andhas left us a great legacy to cherish and build on. His lifewas a celebration of his passion, and his passing an occasionto reflect on his towering achievements and the inspirationhe has been, and will continue to be, to generations of as-tronomers. Prof. Govind Swarup, or rather Govind, as hewanted everyone to address him, single handedly establishedthe field of radio astronomy in India and placed the countryon the global frontlines (Figure 1).

Govind was a truly multi-faceted personality. Describinghim only as a scientist, seems too limiting. He was not onlyan excellent scientist, he was also an ingenious engineer,a visionary leader, an astute project manager, a brilliantinnovator, and at the core a humble, warm hearted and down

to Earth person with a big smile and a mysterious twinkle inhis eye. He touched the lives of so many, not only the oneswho came in contact with him, but also those who pursuetheir dreams using the telescopes he built and the institutionhe established. This article is our humble tribute to him, ourattempt to introduce the readers to the life and the legacy ofGovind.

Early daysGovind was born in 1929 in the small town of Thakurdwarain Uttar Pradesh. After his school education, Govind joinedthe reputed Allahabad University for his B.Sc and M.Sc.It was in the Allahabad University that Govind met someinspiring teachers, including Prof. K. S. Krishnan, and de-veloped a deep interest in research. One of the landmarkevents, which shaped the path of his life, was the 36th In-dian Science Congress held in Allahabad in 1949, where

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Figure 1: Govind at various stages of life. Third from left: Govind with Ronald Bracewell, his thesis supervisor.

Govind had an opportunity to meet several great scientistsof the time, including Prof. C. V. Raman, and the Britishmathematician and geophysicist Prof. Sydney Chapman.

After his Masters, in 1950, Govind joined the National Phys-ical Laboratory (NPL), New Delhi to work under the mentor-ship of Prof. K.S. Krishnan, who had taken over as the firstDirector of the NPL in 1947. His first assignment was to setup apparatus for observing paramagnetic resonance usingsurplus World War II radar equipment. In 1952 Krishnanattended the Tenth General Assembly of the InternationalUnion of Radio Science (URSI) in Sydney, Australia, wherehe learnt about the exciting discoveries being made in thethen nascent field of radio astronomy. He was particularlyimpressed by the young team working under the leadership ofJ. L. Pawsey at the Commonwealth Scientific and IndustrialResearch Organisation’s (CSIRO) Division of Radiophysics(RP) in Australia. Krishnan shared his excitement about thisfield and his vision of setting up such a group in India withGovind and recommended him for a two year fellowshipas a part of the Colombo Plan at RP in Australia. It wasduring this these two years under Pawsey’s mentorship thatGovind spent three month each with groups led by W. N.Christiansen, B. Y. Mills, J. P. Wild and J. G. Bolton in thefirst year and proposed an independent project in the secondyear. Working with these different groups gave Govind theopportunity to learn a variety of different aspects of radio as-tronomy instrumentation and interferometry. Eager to set upthe first radio telescope in India, Govind convinced Pawseyto donate 32 of the dishes of a linear interferometer at thePotts Hill reservoir which he had helped setup. He obtainedKrishnan’s enthusiastic support for the project and returnedto India in 1955 with a dream to start a radio astronomygroup in India. NPL was able to attract a remarkably tal-ented group trained across the world in its The prominentpeople to join in this endeavour were T. Krishnan and MukulKundu. (who had studied solar radio astronomy in France)along with R. Parthasarthy, M.N. Joshi and N.V.G. Sarma[10]. However, as it turned out, the Potts Hill dishes tooktoo long to arrive and much of the group quickly dispersed.

Govind joined the recently established Radio AstronomyStation of the Harvard University at Fort Davis, Texas as aResearch Associate. He got married to Bina just a month orso before they left to take up this offer in July 1956. Quite

unusual for those times, Bina’s father had found Govindthrough a newspaper advertisement. That was the start of arelationship which lasted Govind’s lifetime (Figure 2).

Govind’s stay at Fort Davis was scientifically rewarding andin 1956 he discovered U-type solar radio bursts [11]. Bylate 1957 Govind had decided to do a Ph.D. in the USA. Hewas accepted at all major centres of radio astronomy of thetime – Caltech, Harvard and Stanford. On Pawsey’s advice,he joined Stanford to work under Prof. Ronald Bracewell, aname perhaps familiar to many of the readers because of hisclassic textbook on Fourier transform and its applications [1].Before he submitted his Ph.D. thesis, titled “Studies of solarmicrowave emission using a highly directional antenna", inDecember 1960, he already had job offers from University ofIllinois and National Radio Astronomical Observatory, USA,for an Assistant Professor and “... to be the leader in thedevelopment of an interferometer program ..." respectively.Stanford offered him an Assistant Professor position as soonas he finished his Ph.D., and he accepted it.

Establishing a radio astronomy group in IndiaDespite being well on his way to a successful career in acoveted institution, Govind’s dream remained to return toIndia and establish a radio astronomy group in the country.With this objective in mind, in 1961 T. Krishnan, M. R.Kundu, T. K. Menon and Govind wrote a proposal for theformation of a radio astronomy group in India, and sent itto five scientific organisations in India. They also sent acopy of the proposal to five renowned radio astronomersaround the world – Bart Bok, Jean-Francois Denisse, JanOort, Joe Pawsey and Harlow Shapley – and requested themto send their confidential assessments directly to the Indianinstitutions (TIFR Archives). Prof. Homi Bhabha, Directorof the TIFR, excited by the prospects invited the team back toIndia to setup a radio astronomy group in January 1962. Hewrote to Govind that “... If your group fulfills the expectationwe have of it, this could lead to some very big equipment andwork in radio astronomy in India than we foresee at present...” (TIFR Archives). In 1963, accompanied by Bina, theirthree-year-old daughter, Anju, and their nine month old son,Vipin, Govind returned to India.

Govind joined TIFR in April 1963 and by this time the PottsHill dishes had finally arrived at TIFR. With his team of four

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Figure 2: Govind and Bina at their wedding in 1956 (left) and at their home in 2018 (right).

students (V.K. Kapahi, J.D. Isloor, D.S. Bagri and R.P. Sinha)and two engineers (N.V.G. Sarma and M.N. Joshi) whojoined his newly formed group soon afterwards, Govind de-cided to build India’s first radio telescope in Kalyan (close toMumbai) to study the Sun at 610 MHz. The Kalyan RadioTelescope was a grating-type radio interferometer consistingof 32 parabolic dishes of 1.8 m diameter. The telescopebecame operational in 1965 and one of its important discov-eries was the detection of considerable limb-brightening inthe quiet Sun [13].

The Ooty Radio TelescopeWhile working on the Kalyan Radio Telescope, buoyed byBhabha’s encouragement and inspired by the laboratory andworkshop facilities at TIFR, Govind had been contemplat-ing a much more ambitious project. He was looking forbuilding something big which would address a key contem-porary problem and put India on the world map of radioastronomy. In his own words: "By 1962 Martin Ryle hadcatalogued nearly 300 radio galaxies. He found that theweaker radio sources were more numerous (presumably lo-cated far away) than the brighter nearby sources: Hence, heconcluded support to the Big Bang Model. In 1948, Bondi,Gold, and Hoyle had proposed the Steady State Theory, ac-cording to which matter is created everywhere rather than inthe very beginning, as in the Big Bang Model. Hoyle arguedthat weaker sources may not be located farther away andtherefore Ryles’s support to the Big Bang Model may not becorrect. This led to a great controversy during early 1960s.If weaker sources are located farther away, these shouldhave smaller angular diameter. But angular size measure-ments were available at that time for only about 30 radiogalaxies. Soon after my joining TIFR, I saw two papers in‘Nature’ in the library of TIFR describing occultation of theradio source 3C273 by Cyril Hazard et al., and by MaartenSchmidt suggesting its redshift value is 0.17, most distantgalaxy found at that time. While sitting in the library andlooking at the faraway Indian Ocean, I conceived as to howto measure the angular size of a large number of weak radiogalaxies by using the method of lunar occultation for thepurpose of distinguishing between the Big Bang and SteadyState Models. I proposed the construction of a 500 m long

and 30 m wide parabolic cylindrical reflector to be placed inthe north-south direction on a suitable hill in South India, sothat its axis of rotation becomes parallel to that of the Earth”(Govind Swarup, personal communication). This is howthe idea of the Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT) was conceived.After a survey of several potential sites, a suitable site waslocated on a hill near the town of Udagamandalam (oftenreferred to as Ooty) in the state of Tamil Nadu. The ORTconsists of a parabolic cylindrical reflector, 530m long and30m wide with its long axis parallel to rotation axis of theEarth. The hill it is located on has a natural slope of about11◦, the latitude of Ooty, along the north-south direction.The unique design of the ORT enables it to track celestial ob-jects for about 10 hours from rise to set by simply rotating theantenna mechanically about its long axis. In the north-southdirection, the telescope is pointed by introducing appropri-ate phase delays between the 1054 dipoles located along the530 m long focal line. The mirror of the ORT is formed by1100 thin stainless steel wires which run along the lengthof the telescope. The ORT was designed to operate in the322-328 MHz frequency range. It became operational on18 February 1970 when an occultation of a 4C radio sourceby the lunar disc was observed. Later the same night twoun-catalogued radio sources got occulted by the lunar diskadding to the excitement (Govind Swarup, personal com-munication). By 1975, ORT had provided angular sizes ofabout a 1000 radio sources with arc-second resolution, a featbeyond the capabilities of the best telescopes anywhere inthe world. Using the method of lunar occultation, Govindand his team found that the weaker sources have smaller an-gular sizes than the brighter sources, providing independentevidence of the Big Bang model [18]. The ORT observa-tions during the 1980s was critical in disfavouring the hotdark matter cosmological models [16]. The other scienceareas in which the ORT played an active role included ob-servations of radio-recombination lines from our Galaxy,pulsars and studies of the solar wind using the technique ofinterplanetary scintillation.

During the first 25 years of the TIFR Radio AstronomyGroup, 285 papers were published by its members, 20 ofthem in Nature, of which one was based on observations

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Figure 3: Ooty Radio Telescope located in Udagamandalam (Ooty), Tamil Nadu. The sunlight being reflected off thestainless steel wires forming the “mirror" of the ORT can be seen next to the right most frame of the telescope.

made with the Kalyan radio Telescope and 11 with the ORTand the Ooty Synthesis Radio Telescope, which we discussa little later in this narrative.

In 1972, V. Radhakrishnan joined as the Director of the Ra-man Research Institute (RRI) at Bangalore (now known asBengaluru) and established a radio astronomy group there.Govind saw this as an opportunity to further foster the growthof radio astronomy in the country and provided RRI unfet-tered access to the ORT. This lead to an enduring partnershipbetween the groups led by Govind and Rad, as Radhakrish-nan was popularly known. Over the years RRI scientists havemade important contributions in the field of radio astronomy,particularly concerning pulsars and observations of spectrallines, and have built up a strong electronics laboratory.

Today the ORT is nearing the completion a major upgradethat will convert it into a synthesis telescope consisting of auniformly spaced linear array of 264 elements, each of size1.92m × 30m, and operating over a bandwidth of about 40MHz centered at 326 MHz, with a significantly increasedfield of view [15]. This upgrade, being carried out in col-laboration with the RRI, will make the upgraded ORT amodern highly versatile telescope, opening the doors to avariety of interesting science projects ranging from detectionof emission from the large scale distribution of hydrogenin the post-reionisation epoch of the Universe, searches forFast Radio Bursts and other transient radio sources, as wellas sensitive studies of the solar wind. It is a testament toGovind’s audacity and vision that more than 50 years after its

construction, the ORT remains the world’s largest steerabledish.

Onward to the Giant Metrewave Radio Tele-scopeEven as the ORT was delivering excellent science, Govindwas looking for the next challenge – making two-dimensionalimages of celestial radio sources. Building on the experiencegained from the ORT, in 1976 he proposed the constructionof a 2 km long × 50 m wide cylindrical Giant EquatorialRadio Telescope (GERT), with 10 smaller antennas locatedup to 10 km away, to be located at the Earth’s equator inKenya. Inspired by ORT’s success, this idea was stronglysupported by the Indian authorities, UNESCO and severaleminent scientists from across the world, but the death ofJomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya, in 1978 putKenya in a state of turmoil. Unwillng to give up Govindlooked for other potential Equatorial sites. A suitable sitewas surveyed in West Sumatra. However, frequent earth-quakes in Indonesia were a concern and this idea could notmaterialise.

Nonetheless, to gain experience with building, operating anddoing science with interferometric arrays Govind had startedbuilding the Ooty Synthesis Radio Telescope (ORST). By1984 the OSRT, comprising 7 smaller parabolic reflectorsplaced up to 4 kms away and correlated with the ORT hadbeen setup [17]. OSRT was used by many graduate studentsand research scientists to observe the two-dimensional struc-ture of radio galaxies, clusters of galaxies and supernova

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remnants. Perhaps even more importantly, OSRT gave thegroup the experience and the confidence to take on largerchallenges.

A failure is truly a ladder to success. The Giant MetrewaveRadio Telescope (GMRT) was born out of the failure ofGERT to come to fruition. It was a confluence of a few dif-ferent things – B.V. Sreekantan, the then Director of TIFR,encouraged Govind to think of a truly innovative projectand from a Christmas message from an Australian friend,Govind learnt that they were exploring the use of opticalfibres for transport of signals (Govind Swarup, personalcommunication). As the story goes, on the midnight of 31stDecember 1983, Govind envisioned dividing the 2 km longand 50 m wide parabolic cylindrical antenna of the proposedGERT into 34 parts, to be placed in a Y-shaped configu-ration extending over ∼ 25 km in India, using lasers andoptical fibres for communication to all the antennas. Henamed the proposed instrument the Giant Metrewave RadioTelescope (GMRT). It would investigate certain outstandingastrophysical problems best studies at decimetre and metrewavelengths – observations of redshifted neutral hydrogen,pulsars and the diffuse radio emission from celestial radiosources [19]. According to the Big Bang theory, whichseemed very promising after the discovery of Cosmic Mi-crowave Background Radiation, the Galaxies of today wereborn from gravitational condensation primordial hydrogenclouds. Detecting these proto-galaxies became Govind’sdream project.

Govind and his team proposed the construction of the GMRT,and the village of Khodad, close to Narayangaon, and about80 km North of Pune was chosen as the telescope site.Govind brought together many institutes and companiesin India to make this happen. A TIFR centre for radio astron-omy had been established at Bangalore to facilitate smoothrunning of ORT in 1977. In 1987, the centre moved to Puneand eventually became the National Centre for Radio Astro-physics, a member of the TIFR family (NCRA-TIFR). Today,NCRA-TIFR is a premier research institute in the field ofastronomy and astrophysics, conducting research in severalfascinating facets of radio astrophysics and related topics,a centre for the development of advanced techniques andinstrumentation for radio astronomy, and the home to twomajor facilities, the ORT and the GMRT.

The GMRT is an Earth synthesis radio telescope that pro-vides high sensitivity at metrewave lengths. It is an array of30 dishes, each of 45 m diameter, spread out over a regionof almost 25 km in diameter [19]. It has been designed andfabricated fully indigenously. The GMRT operates in theradio band from ∼130 MHz to 1430 MHz, and is one of themost sensitive synthesis radio telescope at these frequencies.A salient feature of the GMRT dishes is that their parabolicreflecting surface is made of fine stainless steel mesh, insteadof solid panels. To approximate a parabolic surface using flatpanels of stretched mesh, Govind came up with an ingeniousmechanical design, which provided good performance at

Figure 4: Top panel: Govind with some team members atthe GMRT. Bottom panel: Govind in the workshop duringthe construction phase of GMRT.

low radio frequencies while ensuring low wind load, weight,and reduced cost, relative to conventional designs. This ideabecame known as the “Stretched Mesh Attached to RopeTrusses (SMART)”. Of the 30 dishes, 14 are distributedquasi-randomly in a compact central region of size about 1km2, while the remaining 16 are placed along the 3 armsof an approximately ‘Y’- shaped configuration over a muchlarger region. The placement of the dishes was optimized toprovide both – good sensitivity at high angular resolution,as well as the ability to image radio emission from diffuseextended regions. The correlation of radio signals from allthe possible pairs of antennas enables radio images of celes-tial objects to be synthesized with a resolution equivalent tothat of a single gigantic dish of 25 km diameter.

On October 4, 2001, the facility was declared open to theinternational community. The GMRT is one of the foremostinstruments for spectral line studies of redshifted neutralhydrogen (HI) in the Universe (e.g. [2, 9]). The GMRThas also discovered some notable pulsars. A few majordiscoveries were that of a binary pulsar system with a veryhighly eccentric orbit [4], and a very faint young pulsar in asupernova remnant [7]. Early detailed research on pulsarsalso included studies of emission properties and geometryof the emission regions (e.g. [5, 6]).

The GMRT follows an Open skies policy where interestedresearchers from across the world compete for observing

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Figure 5: Making of GMRT: The left most panel shows a view of the prototype GMRT dish made at the ORT. The secondpanel shows a concrete tower on which the dish is place while under construction, and the third shows the parabolic reflectorof the GMRT dish, which was assembled on the ground, being winched up to its final position at the top of the concretetower. The right most panel shows a completed GMRT antenna.

time by putting in their research proposals. Over the last20 years, GMRT has been used by hundreds of astronomersfrom more than 35 countries across the world. It has beenused for observations of a wide class of astronomical ob-jects and objectives including Sun, Venus, Jupiter, pulsars,supernova remnants, HII regions, Galactic centre, clustersof galaxies, radio galaxies, quasars, damped Lyman-alphasystems, associated HI absorption, search for HI from galax-ies located at high redshifts, determination of the epoch ofreionization that occurred after galaxies and quasars wereformed in the Universe, etc. A sky survey based on ∼2000hours of GMRT observations at 150 MHz has recently beenpublished by Intema et al. [8]. Called the TIFR-GMRTSky Survey (TGSS), this survey covers the declination rangeNorth of -53◦ and catalogued ∼600,000 sources.

The upgraded GMRT and beyondThough GMRT had been a very productive instrument, fol-lowing the ethos of remaining at the forefront of capabilitieswhich Govind had instilled, team GMRT embarked on amajor upgrade of the telescope in early 2010s. The primaryobjective of the upgrade was to provide nearly seamlessfrequency coverage from ∼100–1500 MHz with improvedsensitivity receivers along with a massive increase in themaximum instantaneous bandwidth from 32 MHz to 400MHz. In order to achieve this, every aspect of the signalchain, from the feed and the antenna base electronics; tothe sub-system transporting the signals from the antennasto a central electronics; and all of the analog and digitalparts of the back-end electronics which condition, digitiseand correlate the signals have been designed afresh. Thegroup also made use of this opportunity to develop a nextgeneration monitor and control system which provides muchmore fine grained information about the status of numerousdifferent aspects of the system; replace the aging servo mo-tors with newer technology motors and an improved servosystem; and made improvements to the mechanical systemsof the antennas. In fact, apart from the steel used to makethe antennas, and the concrete of the towers on which the an-tennas stand, every aspect of the GMRT has been upgraded.This is also accompanied by much enhanced data storageand computing resources and matching improvements ininfrastructure facilities relating to civil and electrical sys-tems. Like before, all of the new technologies required toimplement the upgrade were developed indigenously – these

included building wideband feeds, wideband low-noise re-ceivers, high dynamic range system for transport of analogradio-frequency (RF) signals over optical fibres, direct sam-pling of up 400 MHz of the RF signal, and the digital systemsfor correlation and beamforming of these signals. In order toprovide a functioning system to the global GMRT commu-nity all through the upgrade, and much to the credit of theGMRT engineering team, the upgrade was done in a mannersuch that all through the upgrade the legacy GMRT systemswere kept fully functional even though that came at the costof considerable increase in complexity and inconvenienceto the team,

The upgraded GMRT was released to the user communityin a phased manner. The fully functional upgraded GMRT,referred to as the uGMRT, was inaugurated on 21 March2019, during “The Metrewavelength Sky II", an internationalconference organised to coincide with Govind’s ninetiethbirthday.

The first formulation for what became the initial main scien-tific driver of the most ambitious radio telescope envisagedyet, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) – detection of neu-tral hydrogen in emission in the distant universe – formed akey part of the science case for the GERT and the GMRTwhich Govind had put together (Prof. R. Schilizi, former In-ternational SKA Director, personal communication). Todaythe Indian radio astronomy community, the fraternity estab-lished by Govind, are an integral part of the InternationalSKA project. The full SKA is expected to be 30-50 timesmore sensitive than the best radio telescopes of today. Withits ability to address several outstanding fundamental keyscience topics in astrophysics, it has the potential to revolu-tionise the field of radio astronomy. Construction of SKAPhase-I is expected to start in 2021, with early science oper-ations following in the next few years. The SKA is a trulyinternational endeavour, India has been engaged with thiseffort since its early days and is one of the eleven membercountries of the SKA Organisation.

Indian scientists, engineers and commercial partners havebeen actively involved in the design phase of the SKA, andare poised to play an active role in the construction phase.On the technical side, under the leadership of NCRA-TIFR,India is responsible for the control and monitoring systemfor the SKA. Called the Telescope Manager, this systemwill form the brains and nerve centre of the observatory and

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Figure 6: Top: Array configuration of the GMRT, whichconsists of 30 dishes of 45 m diameter each. They are locatedin a roughly Y-shaped arrangement. The central 12 antennasform a compact array at the centre of the Y, while remainingmake the arm antennas of the Y extended to a 25 km diameter.Middle: A face-on view of a few GMRT dishes. Bottom:GMRT at sunset - one of Govind’s favourite pictures of theGMRT.

will be central to its successful operation. The uGMRT isa designated SKA Pathfinder facility and is currently thebest platform for exploring some of the front-line issues re-lated to SKA science and engineering. In fact, the uGMRTwill serve as the test-bed for state-of-the-art Telescope Man-ager system developed for the SKA under the leadership ofNCRA-TIFR with industry partnership. Indian astronomersare actively involved in many of the SKA Science WorkingGroups, and the SKA project has provided powerful moti-vation for astronomers across the country to work together.SKA India Consortium (SKAIC) was formed in February2015 to coordinate and oversee the growing SKA relatedactivities in the country. Presently SKAIC has 20 differentresearch organisations and universities across the countryas its members. SKA India Science Working Groups havebeen working to develop a science case and enhancing thepotential user base within the country. The first version ofthe SKA India science case was published in a special edi-tion of the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, in early2017. uGMRT is being used to pursue some of the scienceenvisaged for the SKA. An excellent example is the recentdiscovery of HI emission at redshift of 1, a truly challengingobservation made possible by the uGMRT, which helps ex-plain the observed decline in the star formation rates sinceits peak at red shifts of 4, or about 12 GYrs ago [3]. Asmentioned earlier, detection of atomic hydrogen, was oneof GMRT’s original scientific goals and close to the heartof Govind. Though this result was published shortly afterhis demise, Govind was very interested in this work and hadbeen following it up keenly with the authors.

Science education and mentorshipEarly on in his career, Govind realised the value of educationand mentorship. His teachers and mentors had deeply influ-enced the choices he made and the course of his life. Govind,in turn made sure that he became the guiding light whichhad a similarly deep influence on the lives of many manyothers. He was very concerned about the state of undergrad-uate education in India. He keenly felt the need to attract thesmart students in the country to careers in scientific researchand had himself worked hard on it for assembling his team.He believed that a large part of the problem was due to thevery little research exposure to science students during theirundergraduate education and the rigidly compartmentalisededucation system where education in fields of physical sci-ences, engineering, life sciences and humanities were keptstrictly separate. These, he argued, also contributed in alarge part to the problem of brain-drain. After his formalretirement from NCRA-TIFR, Govind started to develop ablueprint for his idea of science research institutions for un-dergraduate studies. Working with Prof. V. G. Bhide, thethen Vice-chancellor of the Pune University (now known asthe Savitribai Phule Pune University), in 1996 they submit-ted a detailed proposal for institutions which would offer a5-year integrated course in sciences (Govind Swarup, per-sonal communication), the first four years would provide

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science education at bachelors and masters level and the fifthyear would be dedicated to advanced teaching and researchunder the supervision of active scientists in well-equippedlaboratories. With support from C.N.R. Rao, the seeds sownthen came to fruition in the form of Indian Institutes of Sci-ence Education and Research (IISERs). There are now sevenIISERs across India, which have been attracting both tal-ented faculty and students. Govind himself regarded this asa bigger achievement than building the GMRT.

Govind, worked with his colleagues to establish the Kho-dad Rural Science Centre (KRSC) in the village where theGMRT is located. His argument being “Diye tale andheranahin hona chahiye", that there should not be darkness underthe lamp. The basic rationale behind KRSC was simple, toprovide the local students a place where they could expe-rience science by doing simple hands-on experiments, ac-cess interesting books and watch movies and documentariesbased on science subjects. It has grown to a place which noworganises training programs for teachers from the neighbour-ing areas, various competitions for school students and aresource centre for testing of soil for the neighboring farmers,done by students from the village itself.

EpilogueOne of his most remarkable achievements, at least in theminds of the authors, was how Govind enticed a large numberof smart young scientists and engineers from across thecountry to come and work with him. He made his dreamtheirs, kept them high on intellectual excitement and the thrillof being a part of something much bigger than their ownselves. It is said that you go to war with the army you have,not the army you want. Govind had to put together all ofpieces of the jig-saw puzzle of the skill-sets and capabilitiesneeded for building his dream instruments from within in hissmall team. This required an uncanny ability to find a goodmatch between the skills, aptitudes and capabilities of histeam members and the set of tasks to be accomplished. Hemade every key member of his team feel valued and workedwith them to nurture their skills and abilities, and build theirconfidence. He led from the front, himself learning whateverit took to solve the problem at hand and inspiring others to dothe same. He worked hard himself and set high expectationsfor his team. His single minded focus and the sincerity ofhis purpose were clear to everyone who worked with him.

It made everyone strive to rise to above their own selvesto meet his expectations. From nothing, he created a teamcapable of taking on really challenging radio astronomicalproblems from instrumentation to analysis. His ability to findingenious low-cost solutions to big problems was legendary.He curiosity was child like, and his enthusiasm infectiousand ageless. The rate at which he kept coming up with newand innovative ideas was prodigious. So much so that in hismid-50s, an age when most people are beginning to thinkof their retirement, he initiated the planning for the GMRT,his most ambitious project. He was happiest in the company

of young students. Stories abound of how his conversationswith Ph.D. students would last for hours, how even duringthe busiest of days during the construction phase of GMRT,he would make time for the students who barged in withoutan appointment when he was in the middle of what must beimportant meetings.

He was academically active till the very end. He regularlyattended seminars and colloquia till about 2018 and his ques-tions to the speakers continued be some of the simplest butthe deepest. He kept up with the literature and shared in-teresting articles with colleagues and suggested interestingprojects to pursue. His last academic publication came in2019, a GMRT study of the planet Venus to investigate itssub-surface properties and any heat flow in its interior [12].This was the culmination of a Ph.D. thesis project which washis brain child, and a collaboration he wanted to establishbetween ISRO and NCRA-TIFR. The day he went to thehospital for the final time, he was working on addressing theEditor’s comments on his prefatory article for the AnnualReviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics based on the storyof his life and development of radio astronomy in India. Hewas the only Indian astronomer invited to do so in the past50 years.

Through his long and accomplished career, Govind won nu-merous awards and accolades. The most noteworthy amongthem are the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award (1972), thePadma Shri (1973), the Dellinger Gold Medal of URSI(1990), Fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society, theHerschel Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2005)and the Grote Reber award (2007). He also played an activerole in the national and international astronomy organisa-tions and the community. Among other roles, he served asthe second president of the Astronomical Society of India,the Chair of Commission J (Radio Astronomy) of URSI andthe President of Commission 40 Radio Astronomy of theInternational Astronomical Union (IAU).

As the news of his passing spread, it lead to an outpouring ofgrief and tributes from a grateful community and the manypeople who he had touched in his long and well lived life.How his passion for indigenous instrumentation extended toevery branch of science well before it became fashionable,and influenced the course of multiple major projects in thecountry. How he not only wanted to build large telescopesin the country, but he also insisted that they be the besttelescopes in their class anywhere in the world. Along sidehis intellectual and technological achievements, the warmthof the personal connections he established with so manypeople from different walks of life quickly become obvious.He influenced the lives of so many people and made them feelspecial, offering them encouragement and guidance in hischaracteristic direct manner. So many people turned to himfor advice, from young undergraduates to Vice-chancellorsof universities and Directors of institutions. His warmth andsincerity, down to earth nature and that ever present smilemade everyone he interacted with comfortable.

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Figure 7: A tribute to Govind, sketched by Poonam Chandra.

Figure 8: In November 2020, the GMRT was recognised as a "IEEE Milestone". The Institute of Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers (IEEE) is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology in all areasrelated to electrical and electronics engineering. The IEEE Milestones program honours significant technical achievementsand excellence for the benefit of humanity found in unique products, services etc, having global or regional impact, in allareas associated with IEEE. This is only the third such IEEE Milestone recognition for an Indian contribution and globallyvery few telescopes have been given this honour.

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It would be shortsighted to only regard the instruments hebuilt as Govind’s legacy. The generations of astronomers andengineers who were trained during the process of buildingthese instruments and using them to pursue science, manyof who are now valued members of practically every majorradio astronomy group in the world, are also his legacy.The generations of researchers and engineers trained in theinstitution he established, who now permeate the world ofastronomy and science, are also his legacy. The upgradedGMRT and the role India is playing in the international SKAproject follow directly from the things which he set in motion.A true tribute to Govind would be to live up to his ambitionof continuing to maintain and strengthen India’s role as aleading player in the field of radio astronomy.

AcknowledgementsWe thank the NCRA for providing figures and informationfrom the institutional archives. This article has madegenerous use of the information available in earlierarticles about Govind, especially those by G. Srivnivasan[14] and Orchiston & Phakatkar [10], and we refer thereaders to these articles for detailed accounts of Govind’sprofessional journey. P.C. acknowledges support from theDepartment of Science and Technology via SwaranaJayantiFellowship award (File no.DST/SJF/PSA-01/2014-15).P.C. and D.O. acknowledge support of the Department ofAtomic Energy, Government of India, under the project no.12-R&D-TFR-5.02-0700.

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