Prof. C.S. Venkitaraman (1918–1994), popularly known as CSV, was a mathematician from Kerala, India who specialised in number theory, and a very distinguished mathematics professor in Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur.[1] He acquired a research degree (PhD) in mathematics in 1952 from University of Madras, Chennai, and was one of the first few persons from Kerala to acquire such a degree. (There were no institutions in Kerala offering research programs in mathematics at that time.) During the work leading to the award of PhD degree, he derived a new identity for multiplicative functions of two variables. Vaidyanatha Swami’s identity for multiplicative functions which appeared in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society in 1931 could be deduced from that of CSV's.[2] CSV did not pursue a research career in mathematics. Instead he chose a teaching career in mathematics in which he excelled very well.[1] The college he chose to serve had no pretensions of being in the elite league of colleges in Kerala and it was usually dubbed as a common man's college.[1]
However, due to CSV’s active interest in research, the Department of Mathematics of Sree Kerala Varma College was recognized as a research centre for mathematics by the University of Kerala in 1961.[2] Because of his passion for teaching, CSV also did not accept the post of the Principal of the College when the position was offered to him. He was a member of Indian Mathematical Society since 1945. He was born on 14th September 1918 at Chelakkara in Thrissur District of Kerala and died on 16th of March 1994. Dr. A.C. Vasu and Dr. R. Sivaramakrishnan were his doctoral students. Ramanujan Mathematical Society has instituted an annual endowment lecture in his honour.[2]