Who was the first Indian astronomer to be elected as the President of the International Astronomical Union?

Manali Kallat Vainu Bappu (10 August 1927 – 19 August 1982) was the first Indian astronomer to be the President of the International Astronomical Union. He served in this role from 1979 to 1982.

Bappu helped to establish several astronomical institutions in India, including the Vainu Bappu Observatory which is named after him, and he also contributed to the establishment of the modern Indian Institute of Astrophysics. In 1957, he discovered the Wilson–Bappu effect jointly with American astronomer Olin Chaddock Wilson.

On 2 July 1949, when Bappu was taking pictures of the night sky, he spotted a bright moving object which he had rightfully understood to be a comet. When he turned to his professor, Bart Bok, and colleague Gordon Newkirk, they confirmed the discovery. They calculated the orbit of the comet which revealed that the comet would reappear only after 60,000 years.

The International Astronomical Union officially named the comet as the Bappu-Bok-Newkirk comet (C/1949N1). Bappu also received the Donohoe Comet Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

This is the only comet with an Indian name.