"Science while Female"
Rama Govindarajan, TCIS-TIFR, Hyderabad
11am, 22 April, NCRA-TIFR, Pune

The Executive Council, Astronomical Society of India has now approved the formation of the Working Group for Gender Equity to address relevant issues withing the Astronomy & Astrophysics community of India. We thank everyone who supported the initiative to ensure its success.

Please watch this space for our future activities and agenda. Please feel free to contact any of the members of the Working Group to give your suggestions about the issues you feel the working group should be looking into.

Members :
Dibyendu Nandi, IISER, Kolkata
J S Bagla, IISER, Mohali
Niruj Mohan Ramanujam, NCRA-TIFR, Pune
Nissim Kanekar, NCRA-TIFR, Pune
Prajval Shastri, IIA, Bangalore
Preeti Khrab, IIA, Bangalore
Resmi L, IIST, Thiruvananthapuram
Sushan Konar, NCRA-TIFR, Pune (Chair)

The scientific community, all over the world, has historically suffered from gender inequity. Happily, the situation is changing. Many professional astronomical societies (International Astronomical Union, Americal Astronomical Society, Astronomical Society of Australia etc.) now have formal commisions/working-groups devoted to address these issues. A similar effort is ongoing in the Indian astronomical community as well. We have had sessions devoted to discussing gender related issues in three consecutive meetings of ASI (2013, 2014, 2015). A consensus to form a gender equity working group under the aegis of ASI has emerged out of these discussions. A formal proposal (prepared by Preeti Kharb, IIAp, Bangalore) is now being submitted to ASI requesting the formation of this working group.

If you are a part of the Indian Astronomy & Astrophysics community and wish to support the initiative by being a signatory to the proposal please send a mail to Sushan Konar (sushan@ncra.tifr.res.in) indicating your professional status and affiliation. Please note that the research scholars yet to receive their PhD degrees are not being included in the signatory list due to certain logistic issues, though we very much appreciate the support extended by many of them.