"This Is Really the Time": A Conversation with the Director of NCRA-TIFR

The 44th Annual Meeting of the Astronomical Society of India was held at IIT Guwahati in 2026 — and with it came some of the country's most distinguished astronomers. We sat down with Prof Yashwant Gupta, Director of NCRA-TIFR, to talk about how India built one of the world's great radio astronomy facilities, why this moment is unlike any before it, and what it means for engineering students who want to study the universe.