Ramaswamy Venkataraman pronunciation 4 December 1910 – 27 January 2009 was an Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist and politician who served as a union minister and as the eighth president of India.
Venkataraman was born in Raja madam village in Tanjore district, Madras presidency. He studied law and practiced in the Madras high court and the supreme court of India. In his young age, he was an activist of the Indian independence movement and participated in the Quit India movement. He was appointed as the member of the constituent assembly and the provisional cabinet. He was elected to the Lok Sabha four times and served as union finance minister and defense minister. In 1984, he was elected as the seventh vice president of India and in 1987; he became the 8th president of India and served from 1987 to 1992. He also served as a state minister under k. Kamaraj and m. Bhaktavatsalam
Venkataraman was appointed a member of the union planning commission in 1967 and was entrusted the subjects of industry, labor, power, transport, communications, Railways. He held that office until 1971. In 1977, Venkataraman was elected to the Lok Sabha from Madras (south) constituency and served as an opposition member of parliament and chairman of the public accounts committee.
Venkataraman was also, variously, a member of the political affairs committee and the economic affairs committee of the union cabinet; governor, international monetary fund, the international bank for reconstruction and development, and the Asian development bank. Venkataraman was a delegate to the United Nations general assembly in 1953, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961. He was a leader of the Indian delegation to the 42nd session of the international labor conference at Geneva (1958) and represented India in the inter-parliamentary conference in Vienna (1978). He was a member of the United Nations administrative tribunal from 1955 to 1979 and was its president from 1968 to 1979.
In 1980, Venkataraman was re-elected to the Lok Sabha and was appointed union minister of finance in the government headed by Smt. Indira Gandhi. He was later appointed union minister of defense, where he is credited for initiating India's missile programme, and He shifted A P J Abdul Kalam from space programme to the missile programme, and consolidated the entire missile system, naming it as integrated guided missile development program. Later he was to serve as vice-president of India and then as a president of India starting 1987, where he worked with four prime ministers and appointed three of them: v p Singh, Chandra Shekhar, and P V Narasimha Rao, during his five-year term, which saw the advent of coalition politics in India. His successor sd Sharma was the only other Indian president in the 20th century to work with four prime ministers and appoint three of them.
Venkataraman received the doctorate of law (Honoris Causa) from the University of Madras, the doctorate of law (Honoris Causa) from Nagarjuna University. He is an honorary fellow, Madras medical college; doctor of social sciences, University of Roorkee; doctor of law (Honoris Causa) from the University of Burdwan. He was awarded the Tamra Patra for participation in the freedom struggle, the Soviet land prize for his travelogue on K. Kamaraj's visit to the socialist countries. He was the recipient of a souvenir from the secretary-general of the United Nations for distinguished service as president of the U.N. administrative tribunal. The title of "Sat Seva Ratna" was conferred on him by the Sankaracharya of Kancheepuram. He was a devotee of the Paramacharya of Kanchi.
