Every year, National Science Day is celebrated on February 28, to mark the discovery of the Raman effect by Indian physicist Sir CV Raman, back in 1928. For this discovery, Sir CV Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.
History of National Science Day
In 1986, the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) asked the Government of India to designate February 28 as National Science Day. The event is now celebrated all over India across schools, colleges, universities and other academic, scientific, technical, medical and research institutions.
On the occasion of the first National Science Day (28 February 1987), the NCSTC had announced the institution of the National Science Popularization awards for recognizing outstanding efforts in the area of science and communication.
Celebration of National Science Day
National Science Day is celebrated in India every year on February 28. The celebration includes public speeches, radio, TV, science movies, science exhibitions based on themes and concepts, debates, quiz competitions, lectures, science model exhibitions and many more activities.
National Science Day is celebrated to spread a message about the importance of science used in the daily life of the people, to display all the activities, efforts and achievements in the field of science for human welfare.
It is celebrated to implement new technologies for the development in the field of science, to give an opportunity to the scientific-minded citizens in India, to encourage the people as well as popularize science and technology.
National Science Day 2021: Theme
The theme for this year’s National Science Day celebration is “Future of STI: Impacts on Education, Skills and Work”. The theme this year has been chosen for the purpose of raising public appreciation of the scientific issues involved and the impacts science has on education, skill and work.
Sir CV Raman
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was an Indian physicist known mainly for his work in the field of light scattering. With his student KS Krishnan, he discovered that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes wavelength and amplitude. This phenomenon was a new type of scattering of light and was subsequently termed the Raman effect (Raman scattering).
Raman won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics and was the first Asian person to receive a Nobel Prize in any branch of science.
Raman retired from the Indian Institute of Science in 1948 and established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore a year later. He served as its director and remained active there until his death in 1970.
