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Bangladesh celebrates IYA-2009
Bangladesh has already started celebrating the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The local inaugural ceremony of IYA2009 was held on January 1 at Enayetpur, which is 80 miles northwest of Dhaka and is widely known as the 'Space Village' for its high profile celebrations of the World Space Week since 2005. The celebration began with the lifting off hundreds of colourful balloons tied up with the logo IYA 2009 at the playground of Enayetpur high school and continued from 10:00am to 12:00pm. To mark the event school students launched water rockets and drew space arts, which added more attractions to the event. Among the speakers at the inaugural ceremony were Dr. A R Khan, president, Bangladesh Astronomical Society, Dr Sadrul Ula, head of the electronics department, University of Wyoming, USA, Dr Ali Asgar, former head of department of physics, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dr Sirajul Islam, former professor of economics, University of Rajshahi, Prof Lokendra Nath Ghose, principal, Khamar-gram College and F R Sarker, general secretary, Bangladesh Astronomical Society and the Single Point of Contact (SPoC) for IYA 2009 in Bangladesh. In his speech, Dr A R Khan outlined the facts about the initiative of International Year of Astronomy and advised the students and other people to participate in the celebration of IYA 2009. Dr Sadrul Ula disclosed that most names of the stars were derived from Arabic language, as the Muslims were the first to systematically catalogue the names of the stars. Dr Ali Asgar expressed his optimism that Celebration of IYA 2009 is a golden opportunity for scientific sky observation by the students. F R Sarker told that IYA2009 is a joint initiative undertaken by the United Nations and International Astronomical Union and about 135 countries have joined the celebration globally. Bangladesh has two important commitments to fulfill. One is to avail opportunity for telescopic sky observation to minimum 200,000 people and to arrange scientific observation of historic Total Solar Eclipse to be sighted over northern part of Bangladesh on July 22 this year. Meanwhile, a national committee for the celebration of IYA2009 in Bangladesh has been formed with eminent astronomers, scientists and educationists. The committee has already chalked out programmes which include activities like distribution of few hundred telescopes to different schools, about 10 regional, three national symposia and one international conference to be arranged during 2009 aimed to create substantial interest about astronomy among the students as well as the common people in Bangladesh.
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