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CV Raman who was also known as Sir Chandrasekhara Venkat Raman is the first Indian Physicist to win the Asian Nobel laureate in Physics.

He was originally from Trichinopoly (now Tiruchirappalli) in Tamil Nadu. After completing his studies from Presidency College in Madras, Raman wrote and topped the civil services exams when he was 18-years-old. But any time that he got before and after his job as a civil servant, Raman would spend in the laboratory doing his research and experiments. 

In 1921, he resigned from his job as a civil servant and took up research and experiments full time.

During this phase, Raman researched on the Molecular Diffraction of Light and got it published in 1922. It was this work that led him to discover the radiation effect named after him — the 'Raman Effect'.

In simple terms, Raman effect refers to change in the wavelength of light when light is deflected by molecules. (When a beam of light traverses from a transparent chemical compound, the wavelengths of scattered lights will vary from the wavelength of the incident light — the original light entering the chemical compound).

This discovery by Raman created a revolution in India's scientific field. It also won us the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.

Later in 1933, the Indian Institute of Science invited him to lead the Department of Physics.

In 1934, the government of Mysore gifted him land in Bengaluru to set up a research institute called the Indian Academy of Sciences.

In 1948, he founded the Raman Research Institute and gifted movable and immovable assets for the benefit of the institute and served as its director until his death in 1970.

In 1954, he was awarded Bharat Ratna by the Government of  India.

Currently, the main areas of the research at the institute are astronomy and astrophysics, light and matter physics, soft condensed matter and theoretical physics.