Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, the first Asian to have received a Nobel prize in any branch of science, was born near Trichy in Tamil Nadu in 1888. His father was a professor of physics and mathematics, and his mother came from a family of Sanskrit scholars. Raman published his first research paper in the Philosophical Magazine while studying for M.A. degree at the Madras Presidency College. In 1907 he passed the civil service exam, got married, and was posted to Calcutta as assistant accountant general in the Indian finance service. Shortly thereafter Raman began after-hours research at the IACS (Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science), where he started giving extensive lectures and lively demonstrations on various science themes. In 1917 he joined the Calcutta University as the Palit Chair Professor. He discovered the Raman Effect along with K.S. Krishnan in 1928, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1930. Three years later Raman took up the directorship of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and soon founded the Indian Academy of Science. In 1948 he became the director of the newly constructed Raman Research Institute where he remained continually active, delivering his last lecture just two weeks before his death in 1970.Raman’s scientific work spanned diverse areas including astronomy, acoustics of musical instruments, light scattering, crystal physics, mineralogy and the physiology of vision. As his ideas for the development of science were radically different from that of Jawaharlal Nehru and his science team, Raman could not play any significant role in the science policy formulation of independent India. In this talk we will discuss the major events in Raman’s life, his seminal contributions to scientific research, and the rich legacy he has left behind for Indian science.      

Prof. Reji Philip is a senior professor and currently the Head of the Light and Matter Physics Department of the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore. After obtaining Ph.D. degree from CUSAT, Cochin, he worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Regensburg, Germany, and as a visiting scientist at TIFR, Mumbai, before joining RRI as a faculty member. Dr. Philip’s research interests include laser-produced plasmas, ultrafast spectroscopy, nanostructuring using ultrafast laser pulses, and nonlinear optical behavior of novel materials. He has co-authored more than 210 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals, holds two patents, and has contributed to three book chapters. He has mentored several Ph.D. students, post-docs and Master’s project students. Dr. Philip is a reviewer to several international journals from reputed publishers like the American Institute of Physics, American Chemical Society, Optical Society of America, Royal Society of Chemistry, Springer and Elsevier. He has been in the organizing committee of a number of national and international conferences, and has held visiting scientist positions at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and the University of Central Florida, Orlando. Dr. Philip has given more than 150 invited/keynote/plenary talks in national and international conferences.