ABSTRACT
Ramananda recognised early the importance of science and technology in nation-building in India and to inculcate in Indians the scientific spirit and the knowhow to power its industrial and economic growth. This chapter is about the coverage that prominent Indian scientists were given in the journal, including Sir J. C. Bose and Sir C. V. Raman. The journals provided a platform for discussion of science theory as well as the industrial and agricultural policy that could be followed once the country gained independence. Mahatma Gandhi’s small-scale cottage industry-based model of development was pitted against the large-scale model proposed by physicist Dr Meghnad Saha. These discussions became serious with the assumption of power by Indians in several provinces under the 1935 constitution. But above all the journals helped cultivate a scientific temper among its readers by giving scientific and logical explanations of catastrophes, such as the 1934 Bihar earthquake and the hydrological changes produced in Bengal by the building of the railways.
