Nobel Laureate Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

90 years later scientists are still actively working out the results and practical applications of Raman's deceptively simple experiment.

Raman was originally named Venkataraman, preceded by the initial of his father's first name, Chandrasekhara. In school his name was split to C. Venkata Raman, which later became C.V. Raman.

Educated entirely in India, Raman did outstanding research at a time when the small Indian community worked almost entirely in isolation and few made science a career. He discovered the Raman effect – the change in wavelength that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules. The color produced by a molecule when light passes through it is almost like a fingerprint that has found many applications in agriculture, chemistry, biology, medicine and other areas.

"I propose this evening to speak to you on a new kind of radiation or light emission from atoms and molecules." With these prophetic words, Professor C. V. Raman of Calcutta University began his lecture to the South Indian Science Association in Bangalore on March 16, 1928. Conducted far from the great centers of scientific research in the Western world, the results would capture the attention of scientists around the world and earned many accolades to their discoverer.

After discovering the Raman Effect in 1928, he was knighted by the British government in India and received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1930. In 1934 he founded the Indian Academy of Science. National Science Day is celebrated every year in India on February 28 to mark the discovery of 'Raman Effect'.