In 2002, he was elected a Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi and in 2005, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, for outstanding service to the nation.

He joined Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan and completed his education in art in 1961 studying under masters like Ramkinkar Baij, and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

It was conceived as the inner shrine of a Kerala temple, with thirteen bronze sculptures surrounded on three sides by painted murals, 60 by 8 feet in total size.

Ramachandran designed the granite bas-relief sculpture at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu, completed in 2003.

A comprehensive two-volume book ‘A Ramachandran: A Retrospective’ (by Prof. Siva Kumar) documenting and analyzing his works was released simultaneously.

A collection of his articles in Malayalam, Aannottam (Male Gaze), translated by P Sudhakaran, was recently published by Kairali Books, Kannur, Kerala.

Ramachandran also wrote and illustrated numerous picture books for children published in India, Japan, Britain and the United States, for which he received the Noma Concours Awards of 1978 and 1980.