Medicine & Science

Acharya Charaka was a physician and scholar of classical Indian medicine, remembered as one of the principal compilers of the Charaka Samhita, a foundational text of Ayurveda.

His teaching placed careful observation, diagnosis and treatment at the centre of the healer’s work, and students of medicine still read the compendium attributed to him today.

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was an Indian physicist who discovered the Raman effect, the scattering of light that changes its wavelength as it passes through a material. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930, the first awarded to an Indian scientist.

He taught and researched in Calcutta and later Bengaluru, and founded the Raman Research Institute. His discovery remains a standard method for studying matter.

Homi Jehangir Bhabha was an Indian physicist, born in Bombay in 1909, whose work on cosmic rays and quantum theory earned him a place among the leading scientists of his generation. He is widely called the father of India’s nuclear programme.

He founded the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945 and championed scientific institutions of world standing on Indian soil. He died in 1966.

Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was an aerospace scientist who spent four decades with DRDO and ISRO, contributing to India’s satellite launch and missile programmes. He came to be known as the Missile Man of India.

He served as the eleventh President of India from 2002 to 2007 and wrote several books addressed to young readers. He died in 2015 while delivering a lecture in Shillong.

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty is an Indian cardiac surgeon who has led thousands of heart operations across a career spanning four decades. He founded Narayana Health, now one of the country’s largest hospital networks.

His model of high-volume, low-cost surgery has brought open-heart operations within reach of patients who could not have met standard prices, and his teams also run telemedicine programmes for rural hospitals.