The Giant Metrewave Radio telescope (lat: 19 deg 6 min. N, long: 74 deg 3 min E) (GMRT) is a national and international facility in radio astronomy that has been set up by TIFR scientists and engineers in the fore-front of astronomy. GMRT currently operates in 8 different frequency bands in the range 100 to 1700 MHz. It consists of 30 fully steerable parabolic dishes, each of 45 m. diameter located in an approximately `Y' configuration over an area covered by a 25 km diameter circle. It is therefore, currently, the most sensitive synthesis interferometer antenna system in the world at meter wavelengths.
The GMRT provides angular resolution at the seconds of arc level. Hence it is being used for a variety of astrophysical studies from the Solar system to the most distant quasars. From Janaury 1, 2002, the facility is open for scientific use by astronomers, on the basis of submitting proposals to the GMRT Time Allocation Committee (GTAC).
In this talk, we will give a brief overview on this unique Indian facility which is attracting world-wide attention and introduce the subsequent talks that will follow.
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