General Relativity in Post-Independence Era

The most outstanding contribution to general relativity in this era came in 1953 (published in 1955 (ref. 1)) in the form of the Raychaudhuri equation. It is in 1960s that the observations began to confront the eupherial theory and thus began exploration of GR as a legitimate physical theory in right earnest. The remarkable discoveries of cosmic microwave background radiation, quasars, rotating (Kerr) black hole and the powerful singularity theorems heralded a new canvas of relativistic astrophysics and cosmology. I would attempt to give a brief account of Indian participation in these exciting times.