Poolla Venkata Ramana Murthy obtained his MSc (1952) from Andhra University, Waltair and PhD (1963) from the University of Bombay, specializing in cosmic rays, high energy physics and astrophysics. He served as Senior Professor of Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. He was a Visiting Fellow, Durham University (1963); Research Associate (1966-96), Visiting Scientist (1973-75), and Visiting Professor, University of Michigan; and Visiting Scientist, University of Tokyo (1978).

Academic and Research Achievements: PV Ramana Murthy is undoubtedly one among the few cosmic ray physicists in India who have earned international recognition for the work carried out in the past three decades. He is particularly known for the pioneering experiments he carried out deep underground in the Kolar Gold Mines on various aspects of the penetrating radiation, which laid the foundation for a variety of subsequent experiments on mu-mesons, neutrino interactions and on the proton decay. He has made very significant contributions also to the study of the characteristics of high-energy interactions using cosmic rays. He has been involved in the indigenous development of a variety of new types of instrumentation for these experiments. He has pursued some of these studies at accelerators also. In recent years he is leading a team of scientists who are searching for the emission of high-energy gamma rays from pulsars using the atmospheric cerenkov technique. For this purpose a large ultra high-energy gamma ray telescope, the largest in the world, is operating at Ootaacamund for the past decade and among many other results, preliminary evidence has been obtained on burst like emission of gamma rays from the pulsar in the Crab nebula.

Awards and Honours: Ramana Murthy was elected Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and is a member of the Astronomical Society of India.