Ajit Kembhavi (born 16 August 1950) is an Indian astrophysicist. He is presently a Professor Emeritus at the

Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) is an autonomous institution set up by the University Grants Commission of India to promote nucleation and growth of active groups in astronomy and astrophysics in Indian univer ...

, (IUCAA) at

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, India, of which he was also a founder member. He also serves as a Vice President of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

. He is the Principal Investigator of Pune Knowledge Cluster along with Professor L. S. Shashidhara.

Early life and career

Ajit Kembhavi was born in 1950 in

Hubli Hubli, officially known as Hubballi, is a city in the Indian state of Karnataka. The twin cities Hubli–Dharwad form the second largest city in the state by area and population and the largest city in North Karnataka. Hubli is in Dharwad dist ...

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO 15919, ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reor ...

and spent a major part of his childhood there. During his time spent at Hubli, Kembhavi was a neighbour to

Gangubai Hangal Gangubai Hangal (5 March 1913 – 21 July 2009) was an Indian singer of the ''khayal'' genre of Hindustani classical music from Karnataka, who was known for her deep and powerful voice. Hangal belonged to the Kirana gharana. Early life G ...

, the well-known

Indian classical Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as '' Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were not ...

musician. This helped Ajit acquire a keen taste in Indian classical music. After his schooling and junior college education in Hubli, he moved to Mumbai to finish his BSc and MSc in physics from the Ruia college, affiliated to Bombay University. Later, he joined the

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the ...

(

TIFR Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the D ...

) for his PhD in physics with the renowned Indian astrophysicist and cosmologist

Jayant Narlikar Jayant Vishnu Narlikar (born 19 July 1938) is an Indian astrophysicist and emeritus professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA). He developed with Sir Fred Hoyle the conformal gravity theory, known as Hoyl ...

as his thesis supervisor. Later, he moved to England to work as a postdoctoral fellow under Lord

Martin Rees Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, ...

at the

Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge The Institute of Astronomy (IoA) is the largest of the three astronomy departments in the University of Cambridge, and one of the largest astronomy sites in the United Kingdom. Around 180 academics, postdocs, visitors and assistant staff work ...

. After this, he returned as a Research Fellow to his alma mater TIFR. In 1988, when IUCAA was formed, he joined as assistant professor, and later became the Dean of Visitor Programmes in 1997, a position he held for twelve years until 2009. He took up the directorship of IUCAA in 2009 and remained the director until 2014 before being succeeded by

Somak Raychaudhury Somak Raychaudhury ( bn, সোমক রায়চৌধুরী) is an Indian astrophysicist. He is the Director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune. He is on leave from Presidency University, Kolk ...

. He was elected Vice President of the IAU's Office of Astronomy for Development and also serves on the Space Commission of the

Department of Space The Department of Space is an Indian government department responsible for administration of the Indian space program. It manages several agencies and institutes related to space exploration and space technologies. The Indian space program un ...

, India. He is the Principal Investigator of Pune Knowledge Cluster along with Professor L. S. Shashidhara.

Contributions to Indian astronomy

Kembhavi has played a very significant role in the development of astronomy as a research area in India. As a Dean of Visitor Programmes in IUCAA, he was responsible for the growth and sustenance of several programs held in IUCAA and across India, for promotion of astronomical research. As a Director of IUCAA, he played a lead role in cementing India's participation in several international projects including the

Southern African Large Telescope The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a 10-metre class optical telescope designed mainly for spectroscopy. It consists of 91 hexagonal mirror segments each with a 1-metre inscribed diameter, resulting in a total hexagonal mirror of 11.1 ...

(SALT),

Thirty Meter Telescope The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a planned extremely large telescope (ELT) that has become controversial due to its location on Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaiʻi. The TMT would become the largest visible-light telescope on Mauna Kea. S ...

(TMT), and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory

LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large ...

). He also conceived and executed the INFONET project under the

University Grants Commission (India) University Grants Commission (UGC) is a statutory body set up by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India in accordance to the UGC Act 1956 and is charged with coordination, determination and maintenanc ...

, which brought the benefits of information and communication technology to all universities in India including enabling electronic access to thousands of journals. A notable contribution by Ajit Kembhavi is in setting up of the Virtual Observatory's India chapter, a project funded by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The Virtual Observatory project enables standardization of methods of access and descriptions of astronomical data sets enabling ease of access to open astronomical data sets. He also served as the Chairman of the

International Virtual Observatory Alliance The International Virtual Observatory Alliance or IVOA is a worldwide scientific organisation formed in June 2002. Its mission is to facilitate international coordination and collaboration necessary for enabling global and integrated access to data ...

(IVOA) which oversees Virtual Observatory activities internationally. Kembhavi is also a well-known science popularizer and has given several public talks and presentations for promoting astronomy among the masses. He has also written a Marathi book 'Nabhaat Hasre Taare' co-authored by Jayant and Mangala Narlikar.

Areas of research

Kembhavi's areas of expertise largely include gravitation theory,

extragalactic astronomy Extragalactic astronomy is the branch of astronomy concerned with objects outside the Milky Way galaxy. In other words, it is the study of all astronomical objects which are not covered by galactic astronomy. The closest objects in extragalactic ...

and astronomical database management. His contributions include: *

Gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

: Elucidating nature of cosmological singularities under conformal transformations (done as a part of his PhD thesis) *

Quasars A quasar is an extremely luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is pronounced , and sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. This emission from a galaxy nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...

: Estimation of quasars to the X-ray background. *

X-Ray Binaries X-ray binaries are a class of binary stars that are luminous in X-rays. The X-rays are produced by matter falling from one component, called the ''donor'' (usually a relatively normal star), to the other component, called the ''accretor'', which ...

: Study of the tidal capture formation of

globular cluster A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of membe ...

X-ray binaries, and their subsequent evolution millisecond and other pulsars *

Pulsars A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward E ...

: Pulsar magnetic field decay from a comparison between observed data and simulations *

Galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System ...

: Quantitative study of galaxy morphology, scaling relations etc. *Warm Absorbers: Comprehensive high resolution X-ray spectral study of warm absorbers in Seyfert galaxies observed with ESA's X-ray observatory

XMM-Newton ''XMM-Newton'', also known as the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, is an X-ray space observatory launched by the European Space Agency in December 1999 on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is the second cornerst ...

, theoretical modelling using photo-ionisation code CLOUDY, understanding the effect of ionizing continuum shape on the properties of warm absorbers, and stability curve analysis of the warm absorbers.

Personal life

Ajit Kembhavi is married to Asha Kembhavi, a bio-technologist. They have a son Annirudh Kembhavi, who works at the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence.

Honours, awards and memberships

* Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences * Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences * Former President of the Astronomical Society of India () * A Vice President of the International Astronomy Union (2016–present) * Former President of the Indian Association of General Relativity and Gravitation * Recipient of the UGC Hari Om Vats award for academic interaction with Society (2004) * Raja Ramana Fellowship (2017) * Former Chairman of the Governing Board of the Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), New Delhi * Member of the Governing Council and Court of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore * Member of the Space Commission of India * Chairman of the Governing Council of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore

Books

* ''Highlights in Gravitation and Cosmology. ''Eds. B.R. Iyer, A. Kembhavi, J.V. Narlikar & C.V. Vishveshwara, 1988. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. * ''Non Standard Cosmology'' (Revised Edition). J.V. Narlikar & A.K. Kembhavi, 1988. In Galaxies & Cosmology, Eds. V.M. Canuto & B.G. Elmegreen. Gorden & Breach. * ''Gravitation and Cosmology. ''Eds. S. Mukherjee, A.R. Prasanna & A.K. Kembhavi, 1992. Wiley Eastern. * Starbursts : Triggers, Nature and Evolution. (Proc. of Les Houches School), 1998. ''Eds. B. Guiderdoni & A.K. Kembhavi. Springer.'' * Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei - An Introduction. ''A.K. Kembhavi & J.V. Narlikar. 1999. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.'' * The Universe - Visions and Perspectives. ''Eds. N. Dadhich & A.K. Kembhavi, 2000. Kluwer.'' * Nabhat Hasare Taare: A book on Astrophysics of stars in Marathi. ''A.K. Kembhavi, J. V. Narlikar & Mangala Narlikar. Rajhans Prakashan 2008.'' A Gujarati translation of this book has been published.

References

External links

The Pune Knowledge Cluster
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kembhavi, Ajit 1950 births Indian astrophysicists 20th-century Indian physicists Living people Tata Institute of Fundamental Research alumni Indian theoretical physicists 20th-century Indian astronomers Scientists from Karnataka People from Hubli