National Science Day is celebrated all over India on 28th February every year with great passion and enthusiasm to inculcate a scientific spirit in the young minds at a very young age. This day is celebrated in commemoration of the discovery of 'Raman Effect' by the Indian Physicist Sir. C V Raman, who carried out ground-breaking work in the field of light scattering, which earned him the 1930 noble Prize for Physics. U R Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, celebrate the National Science Day, every year, by encouraging students and teachers from various schools in and around Bengaluru to participate in various events held at centre.

URSC celebrated NSD-2020 on the theme declared by DST - 'Women in Science', to showcase the achievements of women in the field of Science and Technology. The events for the students held at U R Rao Satellite Centre, this year have seen a very wide participation of about 1000 Students from various of parts of Bengaluru and nearby. Few of the participants were from outside the city. To start with, on the Feb 15, 2020, three events - Test-of-Scientific-Temper, Spot-painting, and Essay-writing competition held for the students. Essay competition had about 330 students participating from about 46 schools, who wrote essays on two topics - 'Science in Everyday life' and 'Science and Society' in Kannada, Hindi ,and English. The Spot-painting brought out the artists in the young and energetic students, who amazed all of us with their talent and ingenuity. A total of 133 students from different schools and standards participated in the event with the theme 'A day at vegetable market' and 'Women as a scientist - My inspiration' . Test-of-scientific- Temper had about 93 students participating from to 34 schools. A simple questionnaire on science behind the day-to-day observations, really tested children's scientific reasoning abilities.

On Feb 22, 2020, three events: Science-in-me, Teachers'-event, and Extempore -Science-Elocution were held. The event extempore-science-elocution had an overwhelming participation from about 80 students from various schools. It was amazing to listen to the instantaneous innovative ideas of the young children packed with imagination.

On the same day there was a competition for teachers as well, where in about 17 teachers from as many schools made impressive presentations on the topic 'how a teacher can inspire students to pursue a career in science'.

Every year we try to bring in some novelty into the competitions by new ideas. This year one such event was 'Science in Me' in which a team of scientists from URSC exhibited few experiments and children were supposed to watch and find out the scientific concepts behind those experiments and at the end , were supposed to answer some simple questionnaire based on those events. The event had 81 students from 45 schools who participated enthusiastically and also have enjoyed the experiments thoroughly. Few of which include hovercrafts, bottle rocket, spring loaded butterfly, etc…

The main day of the celebration i.e. 28th February, morning, started with inauguration of the events by lighting up of lamps. It was followed by most popular competition of the NSD - Science Quiz. A total of 140 students belonging to various schools took part in this event. Science Quiz was really an infotainment program which tested the depth of science knowledge and spontaneity of the children.

As a part of NSD, three different exhibitions were deployed in the campus of URSC, for all children to visit and appreciate the marvels of modern science. They are Science- in-action, Taare Zameen Par and Space-on-Wheels.

In science-in-action exhibits, scientists of different groups of URSC displayed few science experiments to all participants. 'Taare Zameen Par' is a mobile planetarium, which gave a glimpse of our universe to all children. Space on wheels the third exhibit, is the URSC's satellite display bus, that showcases the achievements in space technology. All the students and teachers were thrilled to go through these exhibits.

The valedictory function was conducted on Feb 28, 2020 in the afternoon. Shri .P Kunhikrishnan, Director URSC presided over the function. The Chief Guest, Dr. O N Ramesh from Dept. of Aerospace Engg, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru presented a lecture 'A stroll on the shores of Science'. The programme concluded with the distribution of prizes for winners by Director, URSC and Chairperson, NSD-2020. NSD-2020 a URSC was a very well organized function with number of events and competitions and an overwhelming response of various schools in and around Bengaluru.