Krishnaswami VenkataramanFNA,FASc,FNASc,FRSC (7 June 1901 – 12 May 1981), popularly known asKV, was an Indian organic chemist and the first Indian director atNational Chemical Laboratory (NCL Pune) andUniversity Department of Chemical Technology, Mumbai (UDCT). He was known for the demonstration of an organic chemical reaction involving 2-acetoxyacetophenones which later came to be known as theBaker–Venkataraman rearrangement and for his contributions in developing NCL into one of the leading research centres in organic chemistry. He was an elected fellow of several science academies which included theRoyal Society of Chemistry,Academy of Sciences Leopoldina,USSR Academy of Sciences,Prussian Academy of Sciences,Polish Academy of Sciences,Indian Academy of Sciences, and theIndian National Science Academy. TheGovernment of India awarded him thePadma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, in 1961.^[1]

Krishnaswami Venkataraman was born on 7 June 1901 in Madras (present-dayChennai), Madras Presidency during the British Colonial rule, in a learnedTamil Brahmin family, to P. S. Krishnaswami, a civil engineer,Sanskrit scholar and the translator ofValmiki Ramayana intoTamil, as the middle-born of his three sons.^[2] His brothers wereK. Swaminathan, a professor of English who was the chief editor of the collected works ofMohandas Karamchand Gandhi andKrishnaswami Srinivas Sanjivi, a noted medical doctor who foundedVoluntary Health Services and is considered by many to be the father of the primary health care movement in India.^[3]Madhav Sharma, an actor of films and television, is his nephew.

He studied chemistry atPresidency College, Madras and obtained his MA fromMadras University in 1923.^[4] Subsequently, he moved to England where he joined theUniversity of Manchester on a scholarship from theGovernment of Tamil Nadu and obtained MSc (Tech) in colour chemistry. He remained in England for his doctoral research, along with another noted chemist,T. R. Seshadri, at the laboratory ofRobert Robinson which earned him a PhD and later a DSc from theUniversity of Manchester.^[2]

On his return to India in 1927, he worked at theIndian Institute of Science as a research fellow for almost a year and in 1928, joinedForman Christian College,Lahore (then part ofundivided India).^[2] He stayed in Lahore until 1934 when he joined the then newly formed University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT-present-dayInstitute of Chemical Technology) of theUniversity of Bombay as a reader and became a full Professor of Chemical Engineering in 1936. In 1938, he was appointed as the head of the department and as the director in 1943, thus becoming the first Indian director of the Institute.^[5] After retiring from UDCT in 1957, he became the third director of theNational Chemical Laboratory (NCL),Pune, the first Indian director to hold the post.^[6] He served as the director of NCL until 1966, but continued his association with the laboratory eve after his retirement.^[2]

Venkataraman married Shakunthala at the age of nineteen when his bride was only fourteen.^[2] The couple had one daughter,Dharma Kumar, who went on to become a notedeconomic historian.^[7]Lovraj Kumar, an Indian civil servant and a former secretary of the ministries ofPetroleum and Natural Gas andSteel, was his son-in-law andRadha Kumar, a noted author, historian, feminist and academic was his granddaughter.^[8] Venkataraman died on 12 May 1981 at New Delhi, survived by his wife and daughter.^[2]

One of the major scientific achievements of Venkataraman was his experiments with2-acetoxyacetophenones when he demonstrated, along withWilson Baker, and English organic chemist, that the compound transformed intoo-hydroxydibenzoylmethanes and finally toflavones which later came to be known asBaker-Venkataraman transformation.^[9][10] This process, a variant ofAllan–Robinson reaction, is in use for the synthesis of flavones andchromones. Through his experiments withArtocarpus heterophyllus, commonly known as Jackfruit, he was able to isolate artocarpanone, atyrosinase inhibitor, as well as eight flavones and later, he isolated similar flavones fromMorus alba (White Mulberry). These experiments helped establish thetaxonomical relationship between the two species.^{[2][note 1]}

Shortly after theSecond World War, Venkataraman was invited for a visitIG Farben, a Germandyestuff manufacturing company, and this gave him an opportunity to study the international dyestuff industry.^{[2][note 2]} He collected data which was later copied and published as an 8-volume book,The Chemistry of Synthetic Dyes, which is considered by many as a seminal work on dye chemistry.^[11][12] He also submitted a report to the Government of India for the development of dyestuff and intermediaries industry in India, known as thePai/Venkataraman report which paved way for the development of the industry in the country, earning him the moniker, thefather of the Indian dyestuff industry.^[13]

Another of Venkataraman's contributions was his work onlac pigments.^[9] He focused his research on the chemistry of laccaic acid and later on otheranthraquinonoid insect pigments. With the help of his findings, heproposed revised structures forkermesic acid and ceroalbolinic acid.^{[note 3]} He was the first scientist in India to useX-ray crystallographers for finding solutions to problems of organic structure.^[4]

During his tenure at UDCT, Venkataraman was instrumental in starting several courses chemical technology, combining pure science and technology.^[4] He guided around 85 students in their doctoral research which included such notable chemists asB. D. Tilak,^[14][15] B. S. Joshi,^[16]Nitya Anand andA. V. Rama Rao.^{[2][note 4]} His contributions are reported in the development of National Chemical Laboratory into one of World's leading research centre in dyestuff chemistry.^[9] He sat in the editorial boards of many journals, which includedTetrahedron,Tetrahedron Letters andIndian Journal of Chemistry. BesidesThe Chemistry of Synthetic Dyes, he also edited another 612-page book,The Analytical Chemistry of Synthetic Dyes^[17] and these nine books remain reference texts in the discipline.^[18] Besides, he also published 271 scientific articles.^[19]

Venkataraman served as the president of theIndian Academy of Sciences for three terms (1943–46, 1949–55, 1965–67) and as the vice president from 1952 to 1955.^[20] He also served as the vice president of theIndian National Science Academy.^[9]

Venkataraman was elected a fellow of theChemical Society (FCS) in 1932,^[21] which became theRoyal Society of Chemistry in 1980. He was elected a founding fellow of theIndian Academy of Sciences (FASc) in 1934,^[22] and as a Fellow of the National Institute of Sciences of India (FNI, now theIndian National Science Academy in 1939.^{[n 1][23]} He was also a fellow of theNational Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc).^[23] In 1960,Academy of Sciences Leopoldina elected him as a member.^[24] He was also a fellow of thePrussian Academy of Sciences,USSR Academy of Sciences, and thePolish Academy of Sciences.^[9]

The Government of India awarded Venkataraman the third highest civilian award of thePadma Bhushan in 1961.^[1] He received the Professor T. R. Seshadri 60th birthday commemoration medal in 1973.^[25] He was also a recipient of theAcharya P.C. Ray Medal of theIndian Chemical Society.^[9]

• Krishnasami Venkataraman (1952).The Chemistry of Synthetic Dyes - Volume 1. Academic Press.ISBN 9780127170015.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Krishnasami Venkataraman (1969).The chemistry of synthetic dyes - Volume II. Acad. Press.ISBN 9780127170022.
• Krishnasami Venkataraman (1978).The chemistry of synthetic dyes - Vol III. Academic Press.ISBN 9780127170046.
• K., Venkataraman (1971).The Chemistry of Synthetic Dyes Volume IV. Oxford: Elsevier Science.ISBN 9780323145701.
• The chemistry of synthetic dyes. Volume V. New York: Academic Press. 1971.ISBN 9780323142953.
• The chemistry of synthetic dyes Volume VI. New York: Academic Press. 1972.ISBN 9780323148597.
• Krishnasami Venkataraman (1974).The chemistry of synthetic dyes Volume VII. Academic Press.ISBN 978-0-12-717007-7.
• The Analytical chemistry of synthetic dyes. New York: Wiley. 1977.ISBN 978-0471905752.OCLC 2542360.
• The chemistry of synthetic dyes Volume VIII. New York: Academic Press. 1978.ISBN 9780323149372.OCLC 849921776.

• Nagendrappa, G. (1 December 2004)."An epitome of K Venkataraman's chemistry"(PDF).Resonance.9 (12):45–51.doi:10.1007/BF02834306.ISSN 0971-8044.S2CID 56234414.
• Nagendrappa, G. (1 December 2004). "K Venkataraman a biographical sketch".Resonance.9 (12):3–5.doi:10.1007/BF02834301.ISSN 0971-8044.S2CID 123449690.

• 1901 births
• 1981 deaths
• Indian organic chemists
• Tamil scientists
• Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in science & engineering
• Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
• 20th-century Indian chemists
• Scientists from Chennai
• Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry
• Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy
• Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences
• University of Madras alumni
• Alumni of the University of Manchester
• D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia alumni
• Academic staff of the Forman Christian College
• Academic staff of the University of Mumbai
• Foreign members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
• Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences

• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from April 2021
• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use Indian English from August 2015
• All Wikipedia articles written in Indian English
• Use dmy dates from April 2020
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox person with deprecated parameters
• CS1 errors: ISBN date