R. VENKATARAMAN

About:

• Ramaswamy Venkataraman (1910 – 2009) was an Indian lawyer, Indian independence activist and politician who served as a Union Minister and as the eighth President of India.
  
  
• Freedom Movement:
  • He actively participated in the 'Quit India Movement of 1942', which resulted in his detention for two years under the British Government's Defence of India Rules.
    
    
  • He was appointed as the member of the Constituent Assembly and the provisional cabinet.
    
    
  
  
  
• Trade Unions:
  • On his release from prison in 1944, Shri Venkataraman took up the Organisation of the Labour Section of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee.
    
    
  • He founded, in 1949, the Labour Law Journal which publishes important decisions pertaining to labour and is an acknowledged specialist publication.
    
    
  
  
  
• Political career:
  • He was elected to the Lok Sabha four times. He also served as a State minister under K. Kamaraj and M. Bhaktavatsalam.
    
    
  • In 1977, Shri Venkataraman was elected to the Lok Sabha and served as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
    
    
  • In 1980, he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha and was appointed Union Minister of Finance in the Government headed by Indira Gandhi.
    
    
  • He was later appointed Union Minister of Defence. As a defence Minister he initiated India's first missile programme, named Integrated Guided Missile Development Program, and appointed Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam as the programme head.
    
    
  • He was also a Member of the Union Planning Commission from 1967 till 1971.
    
    
  
  
  
• N. Committees and Conferences:
  • He was a Member, United Nations Administrative Tribunal from 1955 to 1979 and was its President from 1968 to 1979.
    
    
  • He is the recipient of a Souvenir from the Secretary-General of the United Nations for distinguished service as President of the U.N. Administrative Tribunal.
    
    
  
  
  
• Vice-president of India: He served as the 7^th Vice-President of India from 1984 till 1987.
  
  
• President of India: He served as the 8^th President of India from 1987 till 1992.
  • During his five-year term, he worked with four prime ministers, and appointed three of them: V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar and P V Narasimha Rao.
    
    
  • His tenure saw the advent of coalition politics in India.