Science & Technology
National Science Day 2020
- 28 Feb 2020
- 3 min read
Why in News
National Science Day (NSD) is celebrated every year on 28th February to commemorate the discovery of the ‘Raman Effect’. The first NSD was celebrated on 28th February, 1987.
Key Points
- Basic Objective: To propagate the message of the importance of science and its application among the people.
- Theme: On this occasion, theme-based science communication activities are carried out all over the country. The theme of NSD 2020: ‘Women In Science’
- Nodal Agency to Support Celebration: National Council for Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC) of Ministry of Science and Technology.
- Awards: On the occasion of the NSD-2020, 5 women scientists received awards under two categories – SERB Women excellence awards and National Award for Young Woman Showing Excellence through Application of Technology for Societal Benefits.
Women in Science
- Women represent only about a fifth of senior authors in all published research.
- A study, published in the journal PLOS One in 2018, assessed 293,557 research articles from 54 journals and found that only 29.8% of all research authors were women.
- Another study by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) noted that women inventors account for just under 13% of patent applications globally.
- In India, out of the 560 awardees of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, only 18 recipients have been women. The prize is one of the highest multidisciplinary science awards in India.
Raman Effect
- The Raman Effect is a phenomenon in spectroscopy discovered by the eminent physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman in 1928.
- In 1930, he got a Nobel Prize for this remarkable discovery and this was the first Nobel Prize for India in the field of Science.
- The 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.
