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India’s government has announced
that it intends to join the SKA
Observatory as a full member, and approved funding for the next seven
years of construction.
Plans are now under way to sign the SKA
Observatory Convention, the intergovernmental organisation’s founding
treaty.
Full membership has long been anticipated; the Indian government was a
party to the negotiation of the SKAO Convention, and participated in
the preparatory activities that led to the creation of the Observatory
in early 2021.
India is positioned to supervise the development of the software
required to monitor and control the SKA telescopes, building on NCRA’s
leading role in the international Telescope Manager consortium during
the critical design phase.
The image above shows how the SKAO was featured in the Vigyan Samagam
mega-science exhibition, which
toured India for 10 months from 2019-2020, attracting more than half a
million visitors.
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