32nd meeting of the Astronomical Society of India

The 32nd meeting of the Astronomical Society of India was held at IISER Mohali during March 20-22, 2014. A total of 300 participants attended the meeting and the two satellite workshops held on March 19: one day before the main meeting. The two workshops were: 'Science with the Square Kilometre Array', and 'Gravity Waves',both held on March 19, 2014, IISER Mohali.

The ASI meeting had twelve (12) plenary lectures in two broad themes: mega projects in astronomy, and, polarization in astrophysical radiation. There were a total of sixty (60) presentations of contributed papers in parallel sessions and more than 150 poster paper presentations. The meeting  included special sessions on history of astronomy, astronomers for tomorrow, and, gender issues. The theme of the session on astronomers for tomorrow was teaching and outreach. More than thirty student volunteers helped in the organisation of the meeting. The meeting also had presentations of PhD thesis.

Several awards including best thesis presentation award, Justice Oak best thesis medal, Young astronomer award, best poster award and the Vainu Bappu medal were announced at the meeting. The meeting was sponsored by the Astronomical  Society of India with significant contributions from several research institutes: Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) Bangalore, Aryabhatta Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) Nainital, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Pune, Raman Research Institute (RRI) Bangalore, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Mumbai, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) Pune, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Ahmedabad, and, IISER Mohali. The local organizing committee for this meeting was chaired by Professor J S Bagla with the following members: Drs. Abhishek Chaudhuri, Harvinder Kaur Jassal, J S Bilga, Rajeev Kapri, Sanjeev Kumar and Yogesh Singh.