Tata Steel Ltd is all set to ignite the festive fever with the launch of its Third Young Astronomer Talent Search - 2009 in Orissa. On October 20, 2009, the steel major is going to kick start the first zonal camp of the third edition of the talent search programme from Jajpur in collaboration with Pathani Samanta Planetarium. The other places of zonal camps are Joda, Keonjhar, Belpahar, Berhampur, Jaypore and Bhubaneswar. The topic for this year is "India in Space".

The talent search is organized in three stages - conceptualization, presentation in zonal camp and presentation in state level camp. The best 20 models of the state level camp would be awarded on the eve of the 175th anniversary of Mahamahopadhyay Chandrasekhar Singhsamant Harichandan Mahapatra popularly known as Pathani Samanta on December 13, 2009.

All students of Standard 8 to 10 from any school in Orissa are eligible to participate in the talent search. All the participants had earlier submitted a brief write up on India in Space to Tata Steel and Pathani Samanta Planetarium. The write up should be within 500 words and should also describe the details about the proposed project. On the basis of the write up, the students would be required to attend the zonal level camp. About 100 successful students of the zonal camp would be invited for the State Camps.

In 2007 about 5000 students took part in this event while in 2008 a total of 6000 students participated. Students from the areas like Nabarangpur, Malkangiri, Korapur, Barpali had shown interest in the YATS.

YATS was in fact a first of its kind talent hunt in the State. Such type of events would certainly give an opportunity to the students in rural and remote areas of the State to exhibit their talents and come to the forefront in the field of astronomy. YATS was another example of Tata Steel's commitment for all-round growth of Orissa and its people.

Tata Steel contribution in the field of education in Orissa includes, Institute of Mathematics, Pathani Samanta Planetarium, XIMB in Bhubaneswar, J N Tata Technical Education Centre at Berhampur, Women's college at Joda and Science Block at Sukinda to count a few.

About Tata Steel
Established in 1907 as Asia's first integrated private sector steel company, Tata Steel Group is among the top-ten global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of over 28 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). It is now the world's second-most geographically-diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Tata Steel Group, with a turnover of US$ 29 billion in FY '09, has over 80,000 employees across five continents and is a Fortune 500 company. The Group's vision is to be the world's steel industry benchmark in "Value Creation" and "Corporate Citizenship" through the excellence of its people, its innovative approach and overall conduct. Underpinning this vision is a performance culture committed to aspiration targets, safety and social responsibility, continuous improvement, openness and transparency. In 2008, Tata Steel India became the first integrated steel plant in the world, outside Japan, to be awarded the Deming Application Prize 2008 for excellence in Total Quality Management.