Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (C.V. Raman) was the first Indian scientist to receive the Nobel Prize, winning the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was honored for his pioneering work on the scattering of light and the discovery of the Raman Effect, which now bears his name. The Raman Effect involves the inelastic scattering of photons when light interacts with atoms or molecules. While most photons are scattered elastically (Rayleigh scattering), Raman observed a change in energy in a small fraction of scattered photons.

This phenomenon results in scattered photons having different frequencies, typically lower, than the incident photons. Only about one in ten million photons exhibit this shift, but the effect has proven to be extremely valuable. The Raman Effect is now widely used in spectroscopy to analyze the molecular composition of solids, liquids, and gases. C.V. Raman's discovery opened a new window into the molecular world and remains a cornerstone of modern physics and chemistry.