  India and Belgium have jointly established two 4 meter class optical
telescopes at Devasthal located in Nainital, India. After successful
installation of the 3.6-m modern new technology Devasthal Optical Telescope
(DOT) in 2015, it was technically activated by premiers of both countries from
Brussels on March 30, 2016. Since then, the 3.6-m DOT has been used for both
optical and near-Infrared (NIR) observations for a number of research
proposals. The best angular resolution achieved is 0\farcsec4 indicating that
the optics of the 3.6-m DOT is good and capable of providing images of the
celestial bodies with sub-arc-second resolution. The observations provide proof
that the care taken in the construction of the telescope dome building has paid
a rich dividend as their thermal mass is so low that it has not degraded the
natural atmospheric seeing at Devasthal measured about two decades ago during
1997 to 1999 using differential image motion monitor.
  A few preliminary scientific results obtained from recent observations are
presented along with performance and global potential of the 3.6-m DOT in the
field of galactic astronomy. The 3.6-m DOT is capable of providing
internationally competitive science once high resolution spectrograph and other
planned modern back-end instruments become operational. Geographical location
of the observatory has global importance for the time domain and
multi-wavelength astrophysical studies.
