28th of February, 1928 has gone down in the global history of science. India's most distinguished scientists and physicist- Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman ( Sir C.V. Raman as he is known by many) announced the novel discovery of Raman Effect, now known as one of the basic discovery in the field of spectroscopy. The discovery revealed that as light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength.

Sir Raman was working at that time in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of science, Kolkata. After two years of this discovery, Sir C. V. Raman brought the first Nobel Award for the country in 1930. Raman was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1924 in recognition of his outstanding researches in physical optics, molecular diffraction of light, X-ray scattering by liquids and a molecular anisotropy. He was conferred a Knighthood by the British Government in 1929. The Government of India awarded him the title of "Bharat Ratna" in 1954. The erstwhile Soviet Union honored him with the International Lenin Prize in 1957. Some of the other awards/honors, received by Raman were: Mattencci Medal of the `Societe Italiana della Scienzia of Rome (1928); Hughes Medal of the Royal Society of London (1930) and Franklin Model of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia (1941).

The theme of the year 2014 would be “Fostering Scientific Temper”.