The summer of 1992 brought an unprecedented crisis to the city of Mumbai. The dark rain bearing clouds that normally gather over the city's skyline from the month of June eluded the metropolis all together. Mumbaites were trying everything in their power to please the rain gods – scientific and religious, natural and supernatural.

It was at this time that a prestigious daily of Mumbai carried in its front page, the photograph of a ‘havana’ being performed beside one of the lakes of Powai in order to bring rains to the city. It was being performed not by sadhus and so called godmen but by scientists under the guidance of a certain ‘Rainman of Mumbai’, who claimed to have learnt the art of cloud seeding form the Israelites. Silver Iodide was being poured in the fire of the so called 'havana ' hoping, that it will go up in the air and its particles will provide condensation nuclei for cloud formation and bring artificial rain to the city.

This incident brings into focus, the role played by mass media in developing ‘Scientific Temper’ among the people. True, this piece of news had a sensational value. But all the issues and view points should have been followed up by the newspaper considering the probability of any unwanted impression the news piece could create.

The aim of science journalism should be not only to raise level of scientific awareness among the public – but also to help them think rationally and scientifically. The mass media is an important vehicle through which public can be made aware as to why they should not keep taking tetracycline capsules in anticipation of an epidemic of plague or why it is harmless to remain outdoors during a total solar eclipse.

Now, the question is, who will do the needful? Who will lead the crusade? The gap between the scientists and the common man need to be bridged. For this, initiative has to be taken by newspaper and magazine editors to include science stories regularly. Some common excuses given for the general apathy towards covering science stories are – ‘science does not sell’ or ‘India is not in the frontline of scientific research’.

Why should research institutes scattered all over the country work behind closed doors? Much of the work going on here will make an Indian proud. After all, they are thriving on the tax payers' money and this makes them answerable to the common man. So, the public relation departments of these institutes, can become more active and prepare information for press releases on a regular basis. This will bring success stories of these institutes to lime light.

On the other hand, the press by giving coverage to such stories, will bring our scientists down form the ivory tower, much closer to the common man. In fact, scientist can even achieve stardom. After all, if we have sports and film stars why not ‘science stars’?

One comment can be made very safely that the vernacular press does more justices to ‘science’ than the English press. Most Bengali weeklies and fortnightlies, carry regular columns and quite often they even have cover stories on scientific topics. I can also say the same thing about Marathi. In fact, Prof. Jayant Narlikar once told the author that he writes all his stories and articles in Marathi and then translates in English.