The MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS): Overview and results

The MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS; mals.iucaa.in) consists of 1655 hrs (1.5 PB raw visibilities) of MeerKAT L (900-1670MHz)  and UHF (580-1015MHz) band time to carry out the most sensitive blind HI 21-cm and OH 18-cm absorption line survey.  The L-band phase of the survey is completed and the observations with UHF-band are in progress.  Through these we have recently reported:  (i) the detection of the most luminous known 1720 MHz OH maser line, (ii) the discovery of the first extragalactic Hydrogen radio recombination line at cosmological distances, and (iii) the variability of the HI and OH 21-cm lines at z = 0.247 and 1.173.  The first MALS data release (DR1) based on 495,325 (240,313) sources from narrow-band (~60 MHz) images at 1006 MHz (1381 MHz) is now public (2023 Q3).  This is the first of several data releases to come from MALS.  In this talk, I will present (i) an overview of the survey, (ii) key results, with focus on occurrence of cold atomic and molecular gas in and around the Milky Way and external galaxies (0