The day commemorates the birth anniversary of Sarojini Naidu, the political activist and poet who was an important figure in India's struggle for independence from colonial rule.
Veteran Nobel-winning virologist Luc Montagnier died in Paris recently. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS, along with his colleague Francoise Barr-Sinoussi.