  I will discuss the interactions of a number of individuals that played major
roles in the formation of radio astronomy in India in the period 1952-1962,
particularly Dr. Joseph L. Pawsey. The story began in 1953-1954: Pawsey brought
Govind Swarup to Australia as a Colombo Fellow in 1953, where he worked with
Christiansen, Mills, Wild and Bolton. Later, Swarup went to Stanford where he
completed a PhD with Ron Bracewell working on the new Solar Microwave
Spectroheliograph. In the era 1960-1963, with the encouragement of Pawsey,
several colleagues in Australia and Bracewell, discussions began among a number
of Indian colleagues to form a radio astronomy group in India. The main players
were G. Swarup, T.K. Menon, M.R. Kundu and T. Krishnan. Homi J. Bhabha, the
Director of TIFR, made the decisive offer to this group to start a radio
astronomy project in early 1962. Swarup joined TIFR in early April 1963. Many
factors contributed to the successful formation of the new group: international
networking among scientists of several generations, rapid decisions by Bhabha
and the readiness to take chances in choosing promising, young, energetic
scientists.In December 2013, we have celebrated 50 years of ground breaking
research by the TIFR radio astronomers as well as the outstanding decade of
research with the GMRT- the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope. Govind Swarup has
provided the inspiration and leadership for this remarkable achievement.
