The SKA-India Training Program School is a premier event designed to develop foundational skills in radio astronomy for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. This two-week-long school will feature lectures, hands-on sessions, and exposure to cutting-edge tools and techniques relevant to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project (SKAO), SKA India.
Participants will gain insights into radio instrumentation, observational techniques, data analysis techniques, AI/ML applications in astronomy, and more.
| Day / Date / Venue |
Time | Title of talk | Speaker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday 29th June 2026 (LH-08) |
09:30-10:00 | Welcome | |
| 10:00-11:00 | An Introduction to Radio Sky | Neeraj Gupta | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11:20-12:20 | Multiwavelength Astronomy | Mohit Bhardwaj | |
| 12.20-13.20 | Introduction to Radio Astronomy & SKA | Pankaj Jain | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30 -17.30 | LAB-1: Antenna design and beam pattern generation LAB-2: Building an antenna for 1420 MHz |
Lab Team | |
| Tuesday 30th June 2026 (LH-08) |
8.30-9.30 | Introduction to the Two-Element Interferometer | Narendra Nath Patra |
| 9.30-10.30 | Basics of Radio Telescopes: Receivers | Jagadheep D. Pandian | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11.00-12.00 | Introduction to Interferometry & Imaging-I | Neeraj Gupta | |
| 12.00-13.00 | Introduction to Interferometry & Imaging-II | Narendra Nath Patra | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Measurement of correlated and uncorrelated noise statistics LAB-2: Building an antenna for 1420 MHz |
Lab Team | |
| Wednesday 1st July 2026 (LH-08) |
08:30-10:00 | "What radio telescopes see?" - A Hands-on session | Neeraj Gupta |
| 10:00-11:00 | Signal processing in radio astronomy | V. Mugundhan | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11:20-12:20 | Fourier Transform and its applications in radio astronomy | Jagadheep D. Pandian | |
| 12.20-13.20 | Space weather and the Sun-Earth system in the era of SKA | Rohit Sharma | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Introduction to software-defined radio: demonstration of auto- and cross-correlations LAB-2: Beam pattern measurement for the antenna |
Lab Team | |
| Thursday 2nd July 2026 (LH-08) |
09:00-10:00 | Introduction to SKAO | Yashwant Gupta |
| 10:00-11:00 | Careers in Radio Astronomy in the SKAO era | Yogesh Wadadekar | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11.30-12.30 | Ionospheric Studies using SKA | Abhirup Datta | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Basic Radio data analysis using CASA LAB-2: Receiver chain development and characterisation |
Lab Team | |
| Friday 3rd July 2026 (LH-08) |
09:00-10:00 | uGMRT and the future of radio astronomy in India | Yashwant Gupta |
| 10:00-11:00 | Application of AI/ML in radio Astronomy | Yogesh Wadadekar | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11.30-12.30 | Panel discussion / Q&A | ||
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Basic Radio data analysis using CASA LAB-2: Adding Interferometer Experiment |
Lab Team | |
| WEEK-2 | |||
| Monday 6th July 2026 (LH-08) |
09:00-10:00 | Basics of radio telescopes: Antennas | AR Harish |
| 10:00-11:00 | Basics of Radio Telescopes: Single Dish | Avinash Deshpande | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11.30-12.30 | Calibration techniques in interferometric observations | Divya Oberoi | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Antenna design and beam pattern generation LAB-2: Building an antenna for 1420 MHz |
Lab Team | |
| Tuesday 7th July 2026 (LH-08) |
09:00-10:00 | Radio Galaxies and AGNS | Surajit Paul |
| 10:00-11:00 | Solar Radio astronomy in the era of SKA | Divya Oberoi | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11.30-12.30 | Continuum Science with SKA | Surajit Paul | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Measurement of correlated and uncorrelated noise statistics LAB-2: Building an antenna for 1420 MHz |
Lab Team | |
| Wednesday 8th July 2026 (LH-08) |
09:00-10:00 | Our Galaxy/Cradle of Life | Manoj Puravankara |
| 10:00-11:00 | Gas in galaxies: the Milky Way, Local Volume & distant Universe | Prasun Dutta | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11.30-12.30 | Transients: Pulsars & Neutron Stars | Mayuresh Surnis | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Introduction to software-defined radio: demonstration of auto- and cross-correlations LAB-2: Beam pattern measurement for the antenna |
Lab Team | |
| Thursday 9th July 2026 (LH-13) |
09:00-10:00 | Introduction to Phased Array Techniques | Avinash Deshpande |
| 10:00-11:00 | Introduction to Pulsar observation | Mayuresh Surnis | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 11.30-12.30 | RFI Mitigation or High-performance wide-band antennas | V. Mugundhan | |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14.30-17.30 | LAB-1: Basic Radio data analysis using CASA LAB-2: Receiver chain development and characterisation |
Lab Team | |
| Friday 10th July 2026 (LH-13) |
09.30-12.30 | LAB-1: Basic Radio data analysis using CASA LAB-2: Adding Interferometer Experiment |
Lab Team |
| Lunch Break | |||
| 14:00-15:00 | Cosmology and the early universe | Prasanta Kumar Das | |
| 15:00-16:00 | Epoch of Reionisation using SKA | Prakash Gaikwad | |
| Tea Break | |||
| 16.30-17.30 | Proposal writing / Observing with a telescope | Kunal Mooley | |
| 17:30-17:45 | Closing Remarks / End of the SKAITS-II | ||
Third year students pursuing BTech/B.E in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science Engineering, or equivalent discipline. First year students pursuing M.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science Engineering, or equivalent discipline. First year students pursuing Master of Science in Physics, Electronics, or any equivalent discipline.
We are pleased to announce the list of selected participants for the SKA-India Summer Training Program 2026:
| Sl. No. | Student Name | Sl. No. | Student Name | Sl. No. | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aatif Hasan | 2 | Abdul Rahim A | 3 | ABHIJITH A |
| 4 | Abhinav Singh | 5 | Akanksha Patel | 6 | Akash Yadav |
| 7 | Amey Bagare | 8 | Amruta Kittur | 9 | ANANYA.T.V |
| 10 | ANKITA BISWAS | 11 | ARGHYADEEP BISWAS | 12 | Arpna Mishra |
| 13 | Ashmit Gupta | 14 | Ashwin Raju Kharat | 15 | Athena Basu |
| 16 | Avantika Ajay Sangole | 17 | Bharadwaj M | 18 | Chanchal |
| 19 | Damarla Sudha Nandana Vamsidhar Babu | 20 | Dhairya Kotecha | 21 | Eshaan Sowale |
| 22 | Gayathri.M | 23 | Harikrishnan V S | 24 | Ishita Kundu |
| 25 | Kartikey M Dixit | 26 | Kedar Sharma | 27 | Kushal Prajapati |
| 28 | Pragun Nepal | 29 | R S Pranav Varshan | 30 | Rishav Hazra |
| 31 | Ritesh Pandey | 32 | Rithesh Amalraj | 33 | Romana Ruqia |
| 34 | Saptashaw Das | 35 | SAROJINI S | 36 | Sasmita Acharya |
| 37 | Simran Kaushik | 38 | Soumya Gupta | 39 | Srusti Sampanna |
| 40 | Swastika Sanghi | 41 | Tumma Anusha | 42 | Utkarsh Kr Verma |
| 43 | V Gayathri | 44 | V.Aswini | 45 | Vaibhav Awasthi |
| 46 | Vanshika Dhiman | 47 | Vibha Kulkarni | 48 | Vibha Narayan |
The SKA-India Training Program School 2026 is being organized in collaboration with several esteemed partner institutes.
Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport (LKO), Lucknow is the nearest international airport and located about 90 Km. from IIT Kanpur. It has direct flight connection to all major cities of India.
Kanpur also has an airport (KNU) with limited flights. Ola/Uber cab service is available in Kanpur.
Kanpur Central Railway station (CNB) is one of the busiest railway stations in the country. It is located on the Delhi-Kolkata train route.
Metro services are operational between Kanpur Central and IIT Kanpur from 06:00 AM to 10:00 PM (IST) daily.