General Relativity in Post Independence India

Abstract

The most outstanding contribution to general relativity in this era came in 1953 (published in 1955 \cite{akr}) in the form of the Raychaudhri equation. It is in 1960s that the observations began to confront the eupherial theory and thus began exploration of GR as a legitimate physical theory in right earnest. The remarkable discoveries of cosmic microwave background radiation, quasars, rotating Kerr black hole and the powerful singularity theorems heralded a new canvas of relativistic astrophysics and cosmology. I would attempt to give a brief account of Indian participation in these exciting times.

27 pages, latex, Published in Current Science: Special Issue on 100 Years of General Relativity edited by Banibrata Mukhopadhya and T P Singh