SKA India Consortium

We are delighted to share the latest issue of the magazine Contact published by the SKA Observatory. Two Indian activities have been highlighted in it through two articles titled 1. "India’s scientific community prepares for the SKA telescopes" 2. "Most distant and powerful odd radio circle found through Indian citizen science project". The first was a report on the SKA-India Science Meeting organised at the IISER-Mohali and the second was a report on the discovery of a rare Odd Radio Circle by RAD@home Collaboratory. Please have a look at them here
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research - Mohali
RADatHome, India for Citizen-Science research in Astronomy
National Centre for Radio Astrophysics Department of Atomic Energy, India Department of Science and Technology, Government of India Principal Scientific Adviser to GoI Dr Jitendra Singh Yashwant Gupta Ananda Hota Abhay Karandikar

🆕 The latest issue of Contact magazine is out now!

Read it here 👉 https://issuu.com/ska_telescope/docs/contact_19

In this edition:
📡 A closer look at SKA-Mid's recent technical milestones
💬 Isaac Magolego explains how investing in radio astronomy changes lives
💫 A record-breaking 'cosmic laser', and more SKA pathfinder science
🏗️ The latest construction news from the SKA telescope sites
💭 Reflections from our Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond as the end of his tenure approaches

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With thanks to our partners for their contributions, including:
South African Radio Astronomy Observatory - SARAO, CSIRO, ASTRON - Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, The University of Manchester, ICRAR, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, and Chalmers University of Technology

Glad to announce the 2nd SKA India Summer Training School. This time at SPASE, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur . The poster is out. The registration form and full details will be available (very soon) at https://www.iitk.ac.in/space/skaits/ska_training_school.html

A full house at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research - Mohali for the SKA-India Science Meeting! Senior scientists & the next gen of PhD/undergrad users are coming together to prep for the first look at SKA Observatory data. In-person & online, the Indian community is getting ready for the 2027 Science Verification phase. Department of Atomic Energy, India Department of Science and Technology, Government of India Dr Jitendra Singh Principal Scientific Adviser to GoI National Centre for Radio Astrophysics Yashwant Gupta Tirthankar Roy Choudhury

SKA-India Science Meeting titled “India and the SKA: Preparing for a Transformative Era in Astrophysics” has just been kick-started today morning (15th Jan 2026) at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali.
Prof. Yashwant Gupta (NCRA-TIFR) introduced SKA Observatory to the audience with a talk titled “Overview of the SKA, SKA-India, and forthcoming plans” .... with National Centre for Radio Astrophysics Department of Atomic Energy, India Department of Science and Technology, Government of India Dr Jitendra Singh Principal Scientific Adviser to GoI Tirthankar Roy Choudhury Indian Institute of Science Education and Research - Mohali

✨ Exciting news ✨

"The SKA-Mid telescope is alive as a scientific instrument."

SKA-Mid in South Africa has reached a major milestone, operating as an interferometer for the first time by successfully combining signals from two of its dishes! Astronomers refer to this as "first fringes".

“This is the first true test that all our systems are working together," says SKAO Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond.

Congratulations to the whole SKA-Mid team and our many international partners on achieving this significant milestone. 📡

Read more: https://www.skao.int/en/news/693/skaos-telescope-south-africa-comes-alive-first-fringes-milestone

National Research Foundation, South African Radio Astronomy Observatory - SARAO

The SKA's impact in South Africa From education, skills training, and job creation, to industrial return, technological innovation and spinoffs, tackling climate change, protecting the envir...

"The fact that there have been two really big milestones within my first two weeks on the job shows that there is progress happening at an incredible rate" – Prof. Naomi McClure-Griffiths.

We spoke to Naomi about her international career, her new role as the SKAO's first chief scientist, and the exciting science she expects from the SKA telescopes! 💫

Read the interview 👉 https://loom.ly/JP2ac-I