Venkataraman Radhakrishnan (18 May 1929 – 3 March 2011) was an Indian space scientist and Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences member.

[1] He retired from his career as professor emeritus of the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, India, of which he had previously been director from 1972 to 1994 and which is named after his father.

Radhakrishnan was born in Tondiarpet, a suburb of Madras, to Nobel laureate physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman and his wife Lokasundari Ammal.

He was also the Member of the Governing Council of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

He was also the first to systematically apply interferometry to polarized brightness distributions and an early study of the Zeeman Effect in the 21cm line emitted by a hydrogen atom.

[4] His measurements of polarization of Vela Pulsar aided in establishing the picture of a magnetized rotating neutron star and led him to propose the paradigm of curvature radiation from polar caps of neutron stars which has been a notable contribution to the study of pulsar emission mechanisms since that time.

[citation needed] The period of his stay in Australia also marked his leadership of an extensive survey of the absorption and emission of 21 cm line radiation by neutral hydrogen which later helped to develop a realistic model of the interstellar medium.

His original contributions in these fields were acknowledged by the Government of India by way of support from the Aeronautics Research Development Board, Ministry of Defence (for designing hang-gliders) and ISRO (for sailboats).

[citation needed] He made contributions to the study of Deuterium abundance in the galaxy, Astrophysical Raman Masers, OH emission from clouds, and construction of low frequency telescopes at Gauribidanur and Mauritius.