The talk will begin with an introduction to gravitational waves, their detection and observation. This effort is expected to launch a new astronomy - gravitational wave astronomy - the astronomy of the 21st century. The current status of the laser interferometric detectors around the world will be discussed and the possible gravitational wave sources that can be detected by such detectors. Considering the 20 year old legacy of gravitational wave data analysis in IUCAA, the data analysis of two important sources will be discussed in some detail: (i) the coalescing binaries and (ii) the cross-correlation search for the stochastic gravitational waves. Finally the current and the future effort that India is poised to put into this endeavour will be described