20 top students awarded at YATS programme

A six-month-long exercise to identify 20 most promising young astronomers in Odisha held under the aegis of the Young Astronomer Talent Search (YATS) programme organised by Tata Steel, in collaboration with Pathani Samanta Planetarium, concluded here.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik gave away trophies and certificates to the top 20 students at a function held at Pathani Samanta Planetarium here last evening on the occasion of 179th birth anniversary of Mahamahopadhyay Chandrasekhar Singhsamant Harichandan Mahapatra, popularly known as Pathani Samanta, the legendary astronomer of Odisha.
Tata Steel would take the winners to the Indian Space Research Organisation-ISRO facility in Bangalore for a tour around May 2015 where they would have the opportunity to interact with senior scientists of ISRO, a Tata Steel release said today.

Speaking on the occasion, Patnaik commended Tata Steel and Pathani Samanta Planetarium for jointly organising YATS programme and said with a view to increase the outreach of astronomy in rural areas, the government was going to provide two mobile planetariums and also establish a museum in Khandapada, the birth place of late Pathani Samanta.
Tata Steel Managing Director T V Narendran said YATS was a remarkable initiative aiming to fire up the imagination of young talents who were interested in astronomy and space sciences.
Our association with YATS programme was one of the many initiatives by which Tata Steel contributes to the holistic growth of the society in Odisha, he added.