A solemn meeting (scientific session) of the Physical Sciences Division (PSD) and the Nanotechnology Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), as well as the Scientific Councils of the P N Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI) RAS and the A M Prokhorov General Physics Institute (GPI) RAS, On the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of N G Basov: the ‘BASOV READINGS,’ was held in the Assembly Hall of the P N Lebedev Physical Institute on November 28, 2022.Opening remarks were made by:Kolachevsky N N (LPI), Kveder V V (PSD RAS), Garnov S V (GPI RAS)The scientific program of the joint meeting, published on the website of the PSD RAS (http://www.gpad.ac.ru), included the following reports and speeches:Session 1. Chair: Academician G A Mesyats1. Zubarev I G (LPI, National Research Nuclear University (NRNU) Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), Moscow). N G Basov: a pioneer and organizer of laser research in the USSR.2. Kolachevsky N N (LPI, Moscow). From the first masers to optical frequency standards.3. Pikhtin N A (A F Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute (PTI) RAS, St. Petersburg). High-power near-IR laser diodes: history, state of the art, and development prospects.4. Konov V I (Natural Science Research Center, GPI RAS, Moscow). Modern micro- and nanotechnologies of laser processing of materials.Session 2. Chair: Academician I A Shcherbakov5. Gus'kov S Yu (LPI, Moscow). N G Basov: laser thermonuclear fusion and high energy density physics.6. Mikaelyan G T (LASSARD LLC, NPP Inzhekt LLC, Moscow). One- and two-D diode laser arrays. Technology of production and application.7. Starodubtsev M V (FRC Institute of Applied Physics RAS, Nizhny Novgorod). Research in the field of plasma physics and particle acceleration with the PEARL petawatt laser.8. Evtikhiev N N (STA IRE Polyus, NRNU MEPhI, Moscow). On the application of laser technologies in industry and medicine.9. El'tsov K N (GPI RAS). Surface physics for heterogeneous catalysis, quantum computing, and two-dimensional materials.10. Zvorykin V D (LPI, Moscow). \textit{N G Basov's role in work on excimer laser research: a half-century history from the launch of the first $ Xe{_2}$ laser at the LPI to modern laser systems.}For the 100th anniversary of N G Basov's birth, scientific and biographical materials were published in the journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk (UFN) (see Refs [1–3]), as was a special issue of the journal Quantum Electronics (QE) [4]. Papers written on the basis of reports 1, 3, and 5 were published in QE (see [5–7]), and those written on the basis of reports 2 and 10 are published below in this issue of UFN (see [8, 9]).