Celebration of National Science Day 2026
- 2026 Theme: Women In Science - Catalysing Viksit Bharat -

Dr. Ngangkham Nimai Singh *

Organised by Directorate of Education (S),
Government of Manipur

1. A brief history : National Science Day was celebrated across India on 28 February to honour the discovery of the Raman Effect by physicist C. V. Raman in 1928, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. Dr. K.S. Krishnan who was a Ph.D. student of Raman at that time, was co-discoverer of Raman Effect. Later on Dr. Krishnan was CSIR Director. National Science Day was first observed in 1987.

The theme of this year 2026 “Women in Science: Catalysing Viksit Bharat” emphasized the contribution of women scientists and innovators in building a developed India, recognizing their efforts in research, technology, and STEM fields.

The theme aligned with International efforts such as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, promoting gender equality and enhanced participation of women in scientific research.

Global Efforts in this direction:

• Third World Organization for Women in Science (TWOWS) at ICTP, Trieste, Italy (1993)
• LOREAL-UNESCO International Fellowship in science for women scientists: Ph.D and Post-doctoral fellowship with the message “World needs Science, Science needs Women”.
• Women Scientist Fellowship by DST, New Delhi (2002)
• A book “Lilavati’s Daughters” by Indian Academy of Science (Bangalore) in 2008 which contains 100 biographies of Indian women scientists.
• A message “Women as agents of change” by Commonwealth Day 2011, U.K. “Women can indeed be effective agents of change if they are able to assess the appropriate educational tools”.
• My own publication of a book of 30 women scientists in Manipuri language “Saknairabi Scientistsingi Wari” (2016) with audio CD.

2. Remembering Indian celebrated scientists:

• Sir Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman for discovery of Raman Effect (Nobel Prize in 1930)
• Har Gobind Khorana Indian-American biologist who was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1968 for DNA synthesis
• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar- Indian-American theoretical physicist who got Nobel prize in 1983 for structure and evolution of stars (Known for Chandrasekhar limit).
• Venkatra Ramakrishnan – Indian- American Chemist who got Nobel Prize in 2009 for Ribosomes and protein manufacture
• Srinivas Ramanujan, Indian Mathematician
• J. C. Bose, Indian Physicist
• Homi Jahangir Bhabha, Indian Physicist
• Meghnad Saha, Indian physicist
• Sateydranath Bose, Indian Physicist
• Vikram Sarabhai, Indian space Scientist
• P.C. Mahalanobis, Indian Statistics Scientist
• C.N.R. Rao, Indian Experimental Physicist
• Many more ……

3. Women Nobel Laureates in Sciences till 28 February 2026 (Total 27)

(http://almaz.com/nobel/women.html)

PHYSICS (5):

1903 Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934): Polish-French Chemist
1963 Maria Geoppert Mayer (1906-1972): German-American Physicist
2018 Donna Strickland (1959- ): Canadian Physicist
2020 Andrea Ghez (1965 - ): American Astrophysicist
2023 Anne L’Huillier (1958 - ): French Physicist

CHEMISTRY (8):

1911 Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934): Polish-French Chemist
1935 Irene Joliot- Curie (1897-1956): French Physicist
1964 Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994): British Chemist
2009 Ada E. Yonath (1939-): Israeli Cryo bio-Crystallographer
2018 Frances Hamilton Arnold (1956 - ): American Chemical Bio-Engineer
2020 Jennifer A. Doudna (1964 - ): American Biochemist
2020 Emmanuelle Charpentier (1968 - ): French Microbiologist and Biochemist
2022 Carolyn R. Bertozzi (1966 - ): American Chemist and Biochemist

PHYSIOLOGY/ MEDICINE (14):

1947 Gerty Radnitz Cori (1896-1957): Czech-American Biochemist
1977 Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921- ): American Medical Physicist
1983 Barbara McClintock (1902-1992): American Biologist
1986 Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012): Italian Neuro-embryologist.
1988 Gertrude Belle Elion (1918-1999): American Chemist
1995 Christiane Nusslein-Volhard(1942-):German Developmental Biologist
2004 Linda B.Buck (1947- ): American Medical Biologist
2008 Francoise Barre-Sinoussi (1948- ) French Virologist
2009 Elizabeth Helen Blackburn (1948-): American Biologist
2009 Carol W. Greider (1961-): American Molecular Biologist
2014 Mary-Britt Moser (1963- ): Norwegian Neuroscientist
2015 Tu Youyou (1930 - ): Chinese Pharmaceutical Chemist (Malariologist)
2023 Katalin Kariko (1955 - ): Hungaria-American Biochemist
2025 Mary E. Brunkow (1961 -): American Molecular Biologist, Immunologist

FIELDS MEDAL IN MATHEMATICS (2):

2014 Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017): Iranian Mathematician
2022 Maryna Viazovska (1984- ): Ukrainian Mathematician

ABEL PRIZE IN MATHEMATICS (1):

2019 Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck (1942-): American Mathematician

4. UNSUNG WOMEN SCIENTISTS:

1. Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
2. Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997)
3. Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943 -)
4. Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920-1958)
5. Marie-Sophie Germain (1776-1831)
6. Emmy Noether (1882-1935)
7. Rachel Louise Carson (1907 – 1964)
8. Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848)
9. Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941)
10. Carolyn Shoemaker (1929-)
11. Anne Mansfield Sullivan Macy (1866-1936)
12. Sophia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891)
13. Helen Quinn (1943-)
14. Eleanor Margaret Burbidge (1919-)
15. Vera Cooper Rubin (1928-2020)
16. Cecila Payne-Gaposchkin
17. Mildred Dresselhaus
18. Margarita Salas
19. Many more…..

5. DETAILS: WOMEN NOBEL LAUREATES IN SCIENCES TILL 2026 &
FIELDS MEDAL AND ABEL PRIZE IN MATHEMATICS TILL 2025

PHYSICS (5)

1. Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934): Polish-French Chemist, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) for their joint researches with her husband Pierre Curie, on the radioactivity phenomenon discovered by Prof. Henri Becquerel.

2. Maria Geoppert Mayer (1906-1972): German-American Physicist, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics (1963) with Hans Jensen for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure and magic number.

3. Donna Strickland (1959- ): Canadian (optical) Physicist, was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics (2018) for her pioneering work in the field of pulsed lasers, particularly for practical implementation of chirped pulse amplification (together with Gerad Mourou).

4. Andrea Mia Ghez (1965- ): American Astrophysicist, was awarded Nobel prize in physics (2020) sharing with American Astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel, for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy. This object is generally recognized to be a black hole.

5. Anne L’ Hullier (1958- ): French Physicist, was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics (2023) for her work on high harmonic generation, attosecond physics, particularly atto-chemistry which is world record for the shortest pulse of 170 attoseconds.

CHEMISTRY (8)

1. Marie Skldowska Curie (1867-1934): Polish-French chemist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911) for the discovery (discovery with Pierre Curie) of the elements radium and polonium by the isolation of radium and the study of nature and compounds of this remarkable element.

2. Irene Joliot-Curie (1897-1956): French Chemist, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity.

3. Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994): British Chemist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for development of protein X-ray crystallography and determination of the structure of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin.

4. Ada E. Yonath (1939 -): Israeli Cryo bio-crystallographer, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009, for her pioneering work on the structure of ribosomes. She is known for cryo bio-crystallography.

5. Frances Hamilton Arnold (1956-): American Chemical and bioengineer, was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2018) for her pioneering work on the use of directed evolution to engineer enzymes.

6. Emmanuelle Charpentier (1968- ): French Microbiologist and biochemist, was awarded Nobel prize in Chemistry (2020) along with American woman biochemist Jennifer Doudna, for development of a method for genome editing through CRISPR.

7. Jennifer A. Doudna (1964- ); American Biochemist, was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2020) along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, for her work on first X-ray based structure of catalytic RNA, RNA interference CRISPR.

8. Carolyn R. Bertozzi (1966- ): American chemist and biochemist, was awarded Nobel prize in Chemistry (2022) for her work on Bio-orthogonal Chemistry for chemical reactions compatible with living systems. Her recent efforts include synthesis of chemical tools to study cell surface sugars called glycans and how they affect diseases such as cancer, inflammation, and viral infections like COVID-19.

PHYSIOLOGY/MEDICINE (14)

1. Gerty Radnitz Cori (1896-1957): Czech-American Biochemist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology in 1947, for her role in the discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen, known as Cori Cycle.

2. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921 - ): American Medical Physicist, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1977, for development of the radioimmunoassay technique.

3. Barbara McClintock (1902-1992): American botanist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1983 for her work in genetic structure of maize, breakage-fusion-bridge cycle, chromosomal crossover, DNA transposition, mobile genetic elements, transposase transposable element.

4. Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909-2012): Italian Neuro-embryologist, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1986 jointly with Stanley Cohen for their discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).

5. Gertrude Belle Elion (1918-1999): American Chemist, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1988 for their use of innovative methods of rational drug design for the development of new drugs, with the understanding of the target of the drug rather than simply using trial-and-error.

6. Christiane Nusslein-Volhard (1942-): German developmental Biologist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1995 for her work in developmental biology using drosophila embryo.

7. Linda B. Buck (1947-): American Medical biologist, shared the Nobel Prize in 2004 for their work on olfactory receptors (smell).

8. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi (1948 -): French virologist, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2008 for discovery of HIV with her former mentor Luc Montagnier.

9. Elizabeth Helen Blackburn (1948 - ): American biologist, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2009 for co-discovering the telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere, with her graduate student Carol W. Greider.

10. Carol W. Greider (1961 -): American Molecular Biologist, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2009, with her Ph. D. supervisor Elizabeth Blackburn for the discovery of Telomerase enzyme that replenishes the Telomere.

11. Mary-Britt Moser (1963- ): Norwegian psychologist and neuroscientist, was awarded Nobel prize in medicine (2014) along with her former husband Edvard Moser, for her work concerning the grid cells in entorhinal cortex as well as several additional space-representing cell types in the same circuit that make up the positioning system in the brain.

12. Tu Youyou (1930 - ): Chinese Pharmaceutical chemist and malariologist, was awarded Nobel Prize in medicine (2015) for her work on the discovery and development of artemisinin and related compounds (dihydroartemisinin) after reading an Eastern Jin Dynasty medical tratise by Ge Hong discussing it.

13. Katalin Kariko (1955- ): Hungarian-American Biochemist, was awarded Nobel Prize in medicine (2023) along with American Immunologist Drew Weissman, for her work on mRNA technology in immunology and therapies, particularly mechanism for protein replacement therapy.

14. Mary E. Brunkow (1961- ): American Molecular immunologist, was awarded Nobel Prize in medicine (2025) jointly with Shimon Sakaguchi, Fred Ramsdell, for her work on peripheral immune tolerance. She is known for co-identifying the gene later named FOXP3 – Immune response protein, as the cause of the scurfy mouse phenotype, a finding that became foundational for modern regulatory T cell biology.

FIELDS MEDAL (2)

1. Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017): Iranian mathematician and Stanford professor, was awarded Fields Medal in 2014, for her work on the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces. She was a leading force in the fields of hyperbolic geometry, topology and dynamics.

2. Maryna Viazovska (1984- ): Ukrainian mathematician, was awarded Fields Medal in 2022 for her work in sphere packing problem in dimension 8 and then 24 with proofs which are stunningly simple.

ABEL PRIZE (1)

1. Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck (1942- ): American mathematician, was awarded Abel Prize in 2019, for her pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equation, gauge theory and integrable systems, and for the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics.

UNSUNG WOMEN SCIENTISTS:

20. Lise Meitner (1878-1968): Austrian-Swedish Physicist, was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission during 1934-38 but denied Nobel Prize in nuclear fission in 1944 (awarded to Otto Hahn).

21. Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997): Chinese-American particle and experimental physicist, made significant contributions in the fields of nuclear and particle physics. She is known for her experiment on parity violation in beta decay using Cobalt-60, but denied Nobel prize in 1957 awarded to T. D. Lee and C. N. Yang. She was nominated 23 times for Nobel Prize in Physics.

22. Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943 -): Northern Irish Physicist, discovered the first radio pulsar in 1967 while conducting research for her doctorate. This discovery later earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not among the awardees (her supervisor Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle).

23. Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920-1958): English Chemist and X-Ray Crystallographer, was known for structure of DNA with the photograph taken by her (Photo 51 in 1951). This led to discovery of double helix structure of DNA and Nobel prize to Francis Crick, James Watson, Maurice Wilkins in 1962. Known as Dark lady of DNA.

24. Marie-Sophie Germain (1776-1831): French Mathematician and physicist, was known for her pioneering work on elasticity theory and Fermat’s last theorem.

25. Emmy Noether (1882-1935): German Mathematician, made many important contributions to abstract algebra, theories of rings and gauge fields. She also proved Noether’s first and second theorems, which are fundamental in mathematical physics connecting symmetry and conservation laws.

26. Rachel Louise Carson (1907 – 1964): American marine biologist and writer and conservationist, whose sea trilogy (1941-1955) and book “Silent Spring” (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement.

27. Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848): German Astronomer, was known for discovery of several comets. She was younger sister of William Herschel, famous Astronomer.

28. Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941): American Astronomer, was known for her stellar classification.

29. Carolyn Shoemaker (1929-): American Astronomer and co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. She discovered 32 comets and more than 500 asteroids.

30. Anne Mansfield Sullivan Macy (1866-1936): American teacher best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller. She developed many teaching and learning kits for Helen Keller.

31. Sophia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891): Russian mathematician, made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was known for Kovalevskaya top, Cauchy-Kowalevski theorem.

32. Helen Quinn (1943-): Australian-born particle physicist. Among her contributions to theoretical physics include the Peccei-Quinn theory which implies a corresponding symmetry in nature, predicting a new particle called axions which may represent dark matter of the universe. It is yet to be confirmed. Her other contribution is in Grand Unified Theories.

33. Eleanor Margaret Burbidge (1919-): British-American observational astronomer and astrophysicist. In the 1950s, she was one of the founders of stellar nucleosynthesis and was first author of the influential B2FH paper.

34. Vera Cooper Rubin (1928-2020): American Astronomer, pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates at far away from centre of galaxy. Known for Galaxy rotation problem and existence of dark matter for its interpretation. She was denied Nobel Prize in Physics.

35. Cecila Payne-Gaposchkin : Composition of stars: British-born American Astronomer and Astrophysicist. Known for explanation of stellar spectra and composition of the sun, more than 3,000,000 observations of variable stars. Stars are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium.

36. Mildred Dresselhaus (1930-2017): American physicist, materials scientist, and nanotechnologist known as Queen of Carbon science, Known for Carbon nanotubes.

37. Margarita Salas (1938-2019): Spanish scientist, medical researcher and author in the fields of biochemistry and molecular genetics. Known for discovery of PHI29 DNA polymerase (a new way of DNA Testing which led faster and more accurate).

38. Lilavati’s Daughters - The Women Scientists of India is a collection of nearly one hundred biographical essays on women scientists of India. Published by the Indian Academy of Sciences (Bangalore) in 2008. The book was edited by Rohini Godbole and Ram Ramaswamy.