Akashganga/आकाशगंगा

Overview

Akashganga is a non-profit community based volunteer organization. We are NOT an NGO or a government affiliated organization nor a registered organization. Our events are organized through sponsorships, donations, or personal funds and are facilitated by the general public and the community.

We seek to use astronomy as a means to accomplish the following goals:

Our Motivations

Bihar's brain drain is no secret to the citizens of Patna or Bihar. However, it is also no secret that Patna's infrastructural growth in recent decades has been at a tremendous rate. But has the progress in Patna managed to retain minds that wish to make a career in science?
Patna's educational growth has been to cater to educational demands of the populace. Early to mid-2000s saw droves of Patna-dwellers swarm cities such as to Bengaluru and then Kota around 2010s to prepare and study for engineering and medical entrance exams or to attend engineering colleges. This not only caused new train and flight services to be introduced from Patna to these cities, it also caused the sentiment of creating in-home training opportunities, leading to a tremendous rise in science coaching centers. Almost parallely, we see the establishment of Central institutions like IIT Patna, AIIMS Patna, turning of Patna Engineering College into an NIT, and more. In this day and age, people from other parts of Bihar come to Patna in the hopes of getting technical or medical training and Patna-based students with science inclinations, who don't want to leave all of their family and friends behind have an option to do so, provided they all become engineers or get a medical degree.

However, there are a non-negligible number of youth who end up in pure science college degrees, which they then view as a stepping stone towards an engineering and medical degree, despite spending time and energy on it. Part of the reason why a science degree in Patna feels such a chore to many is because of a lack of awareness about what a science degree can offer. Those that don't find the sciences unappealing, still deal with the societal or familial pressure which is towards not studying the sciences. A pressure largely stemming from the people around them simply not knowing about the prospects a science degree could offer. Additionally, there are engineers who move on to become scientists after their BTech often because of personal interest and the research opportunities science can offer but engineering cannot, but may struggle to assimilate in the sciences unless they are able to easily make up for any lacking knowledge.

Even after one is an established and working member of society, not having basic science literacy hampers with life. Science literacy means having a general knowledge of how the world around us works. Science literacy makes a someone who cooks, aware of the safety regulations when operating a stove. Science literacy makes one eat healthy and knowing who to trust and what to believe when making dietary choices. Science literacy makes people capable of logically thinking and critically analyzing information, an extremely important skill essential in this day and age where information is at our fingertips and we are constantly being flooded by it.

On the other hand, Astronomy, the study of anything not on Earth, has its own appeal. It tells us about our place in the universe, often putting things into perspective about who we are as humans. At astronomy's core is physics, maths, chemistry — three basic science crucial to any technical or scientific job and an elementary knowledge of which is essential to science literacy. As such, astronomy is a gateway science that paves the way for science literacy even for people who might not have an affinity to sciences. Knowledge of astronomy helps people get comfortable with talking and learning more about more technical fields and traditionally challenging sciences. We hope to use astronomy as a tool to raise scientific awareness, foster science literacy, and provide a safe space for all science enthusiasts, educators, and scientists tobe able to communicate their science in hopes of creating a better science research environment in Patna.