Association of Friends of Astronomy (AFA) Goa, on Saturday, celebrated its founder Percival Noronha’s 100th Birth Anniversary and announced a year-long programme to promote the legacy of the multi-disciplinary legend. The event was held at the Public Astronomical Observatory at Junta House, Panaji.
AFA Goa President, Satish Nayak presented a photo memoir of late Percival Noronha, apprising the gathering of the life and times of the former government servant, heritage conservationist, environmentalist, and above all a fantastic human being’s birth in Uganda in 1923 to his last birthday celebration in 2015 aged 95 at his heritage home at Mala-Panaji.
Satish expressed his opinion that for the work that Percival Noronha had put in across a variety of fields to help Goa be on the track in future, he should have been conferred with the Padma award. He also added that AFA Goa will continue to organise year-long informative programmes to celebrate the “blessing” as late Percival had offered a lot in every way to Goa.
AFA Goa through its efforts has grown the interest in Astronomy across the state, taking the number of centres of Astronomical Observatories to 10. According to Satish, there is shortage of man power now and called on Astronomy enthusiasts to come forward to help the association.
Founder member of AFA and veteran doctor Sitakant Ghanekar spoke about the warmth Percival Noronha displayed. Ghanekar also revealed that it was Percival who urged him to be in the association to guide the young generation with his knowledge.
A cake was cut to mark the memorable evening before Sadashiv Borkar of Persistent Systems delivered the Percival Noronha Memorial Lecture on ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Knowing that AI will be a huge tool to assist human beings and can be used to recreate the past and predict the future models, many wonder whether AI could be used to bring back the legends amidst us?
AFA Goa Vice-President Govind Potekar AFA Member Videsh Khandeparkar also revealed great memories about late Percival Noronha to highlight the inspiration they got from the visionary man.
