KOZHIKODE: The jail inmates will go visit the stars. Offering the district jail inmates an opportunity to explore the celestial bodies, the Regional Science Centre and Planetarium (RSCP) is organising a sky observation programme at the jail on Friday. A team from RSCP will arrive at the jail with two telescopes on Friday evening to open the door to celestial wonders before the inmates. All the 300 inmates of the jail will be exploring the sky at the programme. “The programme is being arranged as part of our initiative to make the science centre an inclusive one that reaches out to every sections of society. We are reaching out to the jail inmates as the first step towards our initiative to create an interest in Science, also space, and will be planning future programmes there. Besides, we will also be taking up similar initiatives among other groups in due course of time. A plan to reach out to the housing colonies and apartments with sky watching programmes is on the anvil and we will go in full swing with such initiatives from January or February,” says RSCP director V S Ramachandran. A fifteen-member team consisting of RSCP officials and astronomy club members will guide the inmates in observing the sky with the aid of two fully computerised hi-tech telescopes-a 11 inch mead telescope and a 6 inch celestrone telescope.
A two hour long sky observation programme will be held which will begin with a five minutes class on sky and celestial bodies. “We are looking forward to show them the different constellations and the rings of the Saturn in the programme and we will be organising similar sky watching programmes there once in two or three months if they are interested,” says Ramachandran.
Social Justice Minister M K Muneer will inaugurate the programme at 6.30 pm on Friday at the District Jail in Puthiyara.