Royal Society a compliment to Lord Brouncker, a peer and the first President of the Royal Society. The society's motto, "Nullius in verba", is Latin for "Take nobody's word for it". It was adopted to signify the fellows' determination to establish facts via experiments and comes from Horace's "Epistles", where he compares himself to a gladiator who, having retired, is free from control. The society's core members are the fellows: scientists and engineers from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth selected based on having made "a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science". Fellows
Verba Maximus Paruvu, cricketeer and author, hosted a session at the fest. Stand-up comedian Biswa Kalyan Rath performed at VM16, which features a stand-up show every year. Verba Maximus 2017 (VM17) was held from 4–6 February 2017 and featured authors Ashwin Sanghi and Indu Balachandran, popular Quoran Balaji Vishwanathan as well as a show by stand-up comedian Kenny Sebastian. The fest has literary events like picture perspective (writing about a picture or image that is presented), a Hindi mock parliament called the "Youth Sabha", lit-quiz, debate, group discussion and Sherlocked,an investigative journalism event in which participants have to investigate a crime based