IMSc recently organised a five-day meeting on ‘Cosmic Connections: Bridging the Early and Late Universe’, which brought together researchers across career stages studying the universe from its beginnings to the later epochs. (Photo: IMSc Media)
The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, recently organised the first national meeting in cosmology, ‘Cosmic Connections: Bridging the Early and Late Universe’, from 28 July to 1 August 2025. It aimed at bringing together researchers studying the universe from its beginnings to the later epochs. It was attended by over 90 participants, with invited talks by over 40 speakers representing 25 research institutions across the country.
The conference—organized by IMSc’s Dhiraj Kumar Hazra and funded by IMSc, Department of Atomic Energy—was conceived to create a dedicated annual platform for the Indian cosmology community, uniting theorists, observers, and instrumentation experts under one roof. This year’s program spanned topics from the Early, Intermediate, and Late Universe, with a strong emphasis on fostering interactions across subfields and career stages. It also aimed to provide a prominent platform for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to present their work and engage with the broader community.
The Scientific Organizing Committee included faculty from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune; Indian Institute of Technology Madras; Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune; National Centre for Radio Astrophysics - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune; and Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore.
“In the early days, gravitation and cosmology research was restricted to a few institutes in the country,” says Dhiraj. “You can think of Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri and Jayant Narlikar as the very first generation of modern astronomers in the country. The number of branches of this tree has grown with every generation,” he adds. Dhiraj explains that precision astronomy began with the launch of NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission in the 90s, which led to a surge of interest in astronomy across the world. The cosmology community grew in size, and India was not left behind. “Today, the field of cosmology is multi-messenger, with observations from different wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum and gravitational waves,” says Dhiraj.
The first edition of the national meeting in cosmology was attended by Indian cosmologists across career stages, and hosted 81 talks and 4 poster presentations.
“This event is very special because, as I heard from one of the speakers, almost 99% of Indian cosmologists are here,” said IMSc Director V Ravindran, opening an outreach program organised as a part of the event. “It is a great time for Indian cosmology to come together,” said Tarun Souradeep, Director of RRI, Bangalore. “When I came into the field in the 2000s, the front row of this auditorium would house all of India’s cosmologists,” he recalled. “I am delighted that we now have a very strong community,” he added, pointing to the packed room.
“The ripple effect of this is that India has funded the LIGO-India project [LIGO - Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory] and the the Square Kilometre Array in South Africa and Australia. We have also proposed the Exploring Cosmic History and Origin (ECHO) mission through CMB-Bharat [CMB - Cosmic Microwave Background] consortium of more than 150 scientists,” adds Dhiraj. Some of its members got together for a discussion on the sidelines of the cosmology meeting at IMSc.
Dhiraj stresses that one of the main aims of the meeting was to provide a platform for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to get to know the different aspects of cosmology, present their work and ideas, and look for future opportunities. “We strived to give everyone equal opportunity. During the five days of the meeting, we managed to host 81 talks and four poster presentations,” Dhiraj says.
Another aspect, which was in the agenda right from the beginning, was an outreach component aimed at a general audience. “We need to go beyond technical talks to seed the next generation of cosmologists,” Dhiraj says. “The aim is to instill interest in students about what cosmologists are currently doing and why it is important. To have a next generation of researchers who can build detectors and make observations from India, we need students interested in engineering, software and theory,” he emphasises. “Talks from eminent physicists can inspire students to work in these sectors.”
