February 28 is celebrated in India as National Science Day in the remembrance of great physicist Sir C.V. Raman. Dr. Raman got the Nobel prize in 1930 for his remarkable discovery of ‘Raman effect’.

Raman effect is a change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules. When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other than that of the incident (incoming) beam. Most of this scattered light is of unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from that of the incident light; its presence is a result of the Raman Effect.

In 1986, the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) asked the Government of India to designate 28 February as National Science Day. The first National science day was celebrated in 1987. Every year, NCSTC declared a theme for the science day. This year theme is “Science for the People and the People for Science”. The day is celebrated to encourage the effect of science and technology in our daily lives, to invent and implement new technologies for the development of science and to make people live better and happy.