Talk:Venki Ramakrishnan

Education
Having both the Education and Alma Mater sections in the infobox seems redundant. I suggest removing the Education section and simply having an Alma Mater section with his degree institutions (Baroda [BS] and Ohio [PhD]). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.46.28.44 (talk) 20:05, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Please remove Annamalai University from infobox. Seems like Prof M S Govindarajan is getting him confused with some other student of same name. See: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Venki-Ramakrishnan-miffed-at-emails-from-India/articleshow/5120125.cms 192.250.175.26 (talk) 16:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)Rakesh

Citizenship
The Nobel site says Ramakrishnan is a UK citizen. Does he have dual American/British citizenship ? 161.24.19.112 (talk) 12:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I saw "US citizen" on the Nobel site, and that's where the info in the article was taken from. It may be a simple mistake somewhere along the line: let's check to see what other sources say, the question should be cleared up pretty quickly. Physchim62 (talk) 12:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * NYT says that "Dr. Ramakrishnan was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India, in 1952 and obtained his Ph.D. at Ohio University, and holds American citizenship.". Abecedare (talk) 12:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that we cut all reference to his citizenship. It seems unclear for the moment (maybe it will be cleared up later) and, more importantly, it's irrelevant to his achievements. Per WP:BLP, we should be propagating personal information about living people that we're not sure about, especially when it's irrelevant to that person's notability. He was born in Tamil Nadu, India, that much everyone is clear about, let's just leave it at that for the moment. Physchim62 (talk) 14:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see why the US citizenship is controversial. It's stated plainly on the first line of his own CV and I have not seen any source that contradicts it. Has anyone else ? Abecedare (talk) 14:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

He is an American Citizen of Indian Origin. See what a big loss for India!! If India has truly allowed a Dual Citizenship, I am sure he would have taken it. And, we could have proudly said that he is an Indian Citizen. Now, every where his identity will be printed as American!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.32.207 (talk) 15:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with here. For what it matters (which is little) he self-identifies as a U.S. citizen. Physchim62 (talk) 15:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The source of the confusion is the following Nobel page, which implies he is a UK citizen. In any case, even if Ramakrishnan is a U.S citizen, I wouldn't describe him as an "Indian-American" since that term is normally reserved for people of Indian descent who were born in the United States. 200.168.20.127 (talk) 11:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. I've changed the description simply to "Indian" (as that's where he was born, and where his family originates from). The U.S. citizenship is still noted in the infobox, as that seems reasonably established now. I haven't seen any sources which say that he's a British citizen (as opposed to a British resident), so I suggest we leave things at that for the time being, unless anything new comes up. As I've said above, his passport is hardly the most notable feature about the subject! Physchim62 (talk) 11:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Doesn't having the word 'Indian' in there imply Indian citizenship? --Srath12345 (talk) 11:45, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

ethnicity
please understand, that ethnicity is not the same as nation or race. --Misssss (talk) 09:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

As there appears to be an ongoing edit war over the ethnicity tag in the infobox I have removed it for now. --Pontificalibus (talk) 21:52, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I did cite the CIA resource, "https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html" from where I got it. Pranabnaik (talk) 21:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

why is this being deleted?
122.162.18.204 (talk) 22:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not :-) --Pontificalibus (talk) 22:25, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

"This file is a candidate for speedy deletion. It may be deleted after Wednesday, 14 October 2009." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.18.204 (talk) 22:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * That refers to the image file. See the image page for more information. --Pontificalibus (talk) 22:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

lead rationale / copyvio
An article's lead is just the summary of what is in the article and should be kept to the point, I have made the changes because --Sodabottle (talk) 07:06, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) structural biologist instead of molecular biologist, because it is more specific and we have an article to explain what it is
 * 2) He is not prominent for being an atomic physicist. so we can chuck it from the lead
 * 3) No need to go into detail about the coawardees - they are blue linked.
 * 4) the citation is a direct quote from nobel committee citation.
 * 5) MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL - the version KKM10 insists on is a blatant copyvio from Brittanica.

Comment on COI issue
As an active wikipedian in scientific editing and a follower of ribosome structures, I'd like to comment that I believe the current name of this article (without "Sir") is indeed the appropriate one. It seems that Ramakrishnan himself (as riboman) directly edited the article to remove the title he does not like to use; however, if he had asked me to do that I certainly would have. The article very clearly documents his knighthood, which fulfills the encyclopedic necessity for correctness and completeness. As far as the article name for living persons, in the other cases I've been involved with or seen discussions on, such questions are decided by what is the name in common usage (which of course usually follows the subject's own wishes), such as whether or not a woman's maiden name should be included. Within the scientific community, no one refers to Venki as "Sir" without a laugh or an apology! Dcrjsr (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * He has already requested that through WP:OTRS, which is the correct channel (I've now added the banner at the top of this talk page too). cheers. &mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  16:28, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Early Life
So Lalita Ramakrishnan, Venki's sister was just named to the National Academy (http://www.cam.ac.uk/for-staff/awards/lalita-ramakrishnan-elected-to-the-us-national-academy-of-sciences). Perhaps there should be some mention of her? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.152.173 (talk) 10:47, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thank you. I guessed and wrote foreign associate. -SusanLesch (talk) 03:51, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Ms. Ramakrishnan is a National Academy member. -SusanLesch (talk) 04:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

personal life template:request edit
I've removed the template from the Personal life section, since it seems to only refer to the ridiculous battle (Jan 2016) over his anti-homeopathy comments in the Hindustan Times (same goes for the short lived Controversy section). I've opted to omit description of his stance against homeopathy, since his opposition to pseudoscience is shared by pretty much all scientists. T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 12:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Knighthood?
Why are edits re Ramakrishnan's knighthood constantly removed when the correct prefix of 'Sir' is added?

As a holder of a knighthood he is entitled to that prefix, regardless of whether he uses it professionally. In fact, the Royal Society website refers to him as Sir Venki Ramakrishnan (https://royalsociety.org/about-us/committees/council/).

The writer and author Jonathan Miller's page has him correctly listed as Sir Jonathan Miller, as he holds a knighthood, even though he never uses it and has even been quoted as saying he can't stand the title of Sir. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ttfreck (talk • contribs) 00:02, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * As seen in this diff, "there is an OTRS request from the subject requesting this not be used, as a reasonable BLP request it should be accepted." Mojoworker (talk) 19:03, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Gene Machine
His memoir, Gene Machine, is mentioned as one of several citations for one point, but otherwise ignored. Is there a reason for this? Obviously, a Wikipedia bio is not a CV and we would not attempt to list all of his publications, but a book aimed at a general audience is a far cry from a highly technical scientific paper. To me it seems notable to tell the reader that he wrote a book recounting his life and career, with particular emphasis on the work for which he won the Nobel, and that it's also an audiobook (professional narrator, not Ramakrishnan). JamesMLane t c 07:49, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I have the same question. Ronaldo16 (talk) 22:52, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Last paragraph of Career and Research more suitable for Views section
I believe that the following paragraph is more suitable for the section on Views rather than the section on his Career and Research, since he is essentially stating his views on the subject of Brexit and Science.

''In an interview in July 2018, he said that Britain's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) was hurting Britain's reputation as a good place to work in science, commenting "It's very hard for the science community to see any advantages in Brexit. They are pretty blunt about that." He saw advantages to both the UK and the EU for Britain to continue to be engaged in Galileo and Euratom, which, unlike the European Medicines Agency, are not EU agencies. ''

I decided to ask here before making the edit as I'm new to WP:BLP.

2001:8F8:1333:8A1F:482A:D283:3EDF:F730 (talk) 08:39, 15 August 2020 (UTC)